Political Quotes

“Section 3404 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created the Independent Payment Advisory Board, known by the acronym ``IPAB.'' Beginning in 2014, this 15-member board will be charged with cutting the growth rate of Medicare spending. IPAB is designed as a bureaucracy that will be looking not at how to improve patient care but how to hit an expenditure target. PPACA limits what IPAB would be able to do to restrict cost growth. For example, IPAB cannot recommend higher cost sharing, or otherwise restrict benefits or eligibility. The primary means of achieving expenditure targets will be to reduce payments to physicians and hospitals. This, in turn, will reduce access to providers--access that Medicare patients need to have--as the providers will find that they will not be able to afford to accept Medicare's reimbursement rates. Furthermore, Congress ceded a tremendous amount of power to the IPAB. If Members believe that the cuts proposed by IPAB won't work or are too draconian, it will take an affirmative act by future Congresses to overturn its recommendations. This represents an abdication of responsibility by Congress, whose Members are expected to make these decisions, not unelected, unaccountable Federal bureaucrats. Equally troubling, the IPAB bears more than a passing resemblance to the British National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which governs payment for the National Health Service.”