John Cornyn: “I ask the Senator from Wyoming, it seems to me that what the intent is behind this Independent Payment Advisory Board…”

“I ask the Senator from Wyoming, it seems to me that what the intent is behind this Independent Payment Advisory Board and the President's health care law, sometimes called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--I think it needs to be named ``Unaffordable Care Act'' for reasons we can go into later. But the purpose behind it we can all understand; that is, to try to contain health care costs and spending by the Federal Government because, of course, health care inflation is going up much faster than regular inflation of the Consumer Price Index. It strikes me that, as in a lot of the policy debates we have in Washington and Congress, we all agree we need to do something to contain costs, but we disagree about the means to achieve that affordability that we all know we need and to contain the inflation of health care costs. I would like to ask my colleague, rather than have Congress outsource its responsibility in this area to an unelected, unaccountable group of 15 bureaucrats, from which there is no appeal and which would have the consequence, as he said, of limiting people's access--because if all they are going to do is cut provider payments to hospitals and doctors, then fewer and fewer doctors and hospitals are going to be able to see those patients. Does he see an alternative that would perhaps help contain costs more by using transparency, patient choice, and good old-fashioned American competition?…”