News Release

HHS Issues FY 2007 Financial Report

Ninth Consecutive Clean Opinion on Its Audited Financial Statements

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt announced today that, for the ninth consecutive year, the Department of Health and Human Services has received a clean audit opinion on the department's fiscal year (FY) 2007 consolidated financial statements.

The financial report is similar to a corporation's annual report to shareholders. It presents fiscal and high-level performance results that enable the President, Congress, and the American people to assess the department's performance relative to its mission and includes the department's audited financial statements.

"Our role is to protect the health and well-being of Americans, and the strength and accountability of our financial operations is vital to do that," Secretary Leavitt said.

The department, which is responsible for more than 300 programs, is the nation's largest health insurer and the federal government's largest grant-making agency.

With net outlays in excess of $650 billion in FY 2007, HHS is one of the largest, most complex financial organizations in the world. The clean audit opinion is an important indicator of how HHS fulfills its stewardship responsibilities.

For the second straight year, the department's audited financial statements include a Statement of Social Insurance (SOSI), as required by federal accounting standards. With actuarially-determined projections of future Medicare costs exceeding $50 trillion, the SOSI is likely the largest financial statement ever audited. This statement is intended to help citizens assess the financial position of the Medicare trust funds, as well as the adequacy of future budgetary resources for its programs.

The HHS FY 2007 Financial Report document will be available soon on the Web at http://www.hhs.gov/. In addition, HHS will produce a Highlights document to accompany its FY 2009 Congressional Budget Justification, which will be available in February 2008.

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Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are available at http://www.hhs.gov/news.

Last revised: August 29, 2008