On the recordMarch 20, 2012
I appreciate the majority leader giving me the time to come down here today, because I've got IPAB on my mind, Mr. Speaker. I say that like everybody knows what that is because we talk about it here in this Chamber all day long. IPAB, a word that was not even in the lexicon of America until the President passed his health care bill. What is IPAB? I happened to bring down with me today, Mr. Speaker, the front page of the President's health care bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as he describes it. This was the 900-page law that was passed that completely restructured a sixth of the American economy. The question then is, when we're talking about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and we're talking about how we change the individual health care decisions that every American gets to make, what do we get for it? What's the value added there? Because I think, Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, when folks are talking about what motivates them, it really is affordable care. That's why we named the bill this way, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We want patients to be protected, to be able to make their own health care choices. We want care to be made available to folks at prices that American families can afford. There are 900 pages in that health care bill, Mr. Speaker. Now, IPAB, how would we describe it? We would call IPAB the hammer in the health care bill, because there are lots of ways to save money, Mr. Speaker.…
