Political Quotes

“I want to thank Mr. Guthrie from Kentucky. He has done a terrific job on the Energy and Commerce Committee on many fronts related to improving healthcare, especially for seniors and low- income Americans, among others. Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 849. This is the Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act of 2017. This will repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, IPAB. The purpose of IPAB is to reduce Medicare's per capita growth rate. While, certainly, that is important work, this is not the solution. The IPAB, created by the Affordable Care Act, would be composed of 15 unelected bureaucrats authorized to unilaterally make decisions regarding Medicare's finances, whether that be through draconian cuts to provider payments or by imposing policy changes that would reduce Medicare spending if the program exceeds an arbitrary growth rate target. In other words, they can do just about anything they want to cut Medicare, and we don't have much of a say in it. These changes would automatically go into effect, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be forced to implement these reductions should IPAB be triggered, unless Congress passed legislation that would achieve the same amount of savings. It is also worth noting that current law does not require a public comment period before IPAB issues their recommendations, so there would be no chance for the public to weigh in.…”