Dr. Mark G. Neerhof
CNSNews.com
10/15/2012
As a physician, I would like to make you aware of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, a key element of the administration’s federal takeover of medicine.
IPAB is a board consisting of 15 unelected, appointed bureaucrats whose task it is to cut the growth of Medicare spending, and the cuts they are mandated to make will be deep.
The decisions IPAB makes behind closed doors can only be overturned by a supermajority of Congress, something almost impossible to achieve.
So, the politicians have set up a system where they can say to seniors, “It was those bureaucrats that cut your Medicare, not me.”
How does IPAB achieve these cuts? The supporters of the law say, “It says right in the statute IPAB cannot ration.” But what IPAB can do, and in fact is their only option for controlling costs, is to cut reimbursement rates to doctors and hospitals. They decide what procedures are important, not your doctor, and they decide what Medicare will pay for them.
When services are no longer available to seniors because reimbursements for those procedures have been drastically cut, that’s rationing…
…Seniors should have a choice: Stay with traditional Medicare or use your Medicare benefits to choose a plan better suited to your needs…
The complete article is at CNSNews.com
Update: Obamacare’s Rationing by Another Name
The stunning post-debate reversal in Mitt Romney’s fortunes may not last through the elections. But win or lose, he’ll do the country a big favor if he continues to expose the Independent Payment Advisory Board—the beloved center-piece of Obamacare—for what it is: An effort to give an unelected and unconstitutional board of bureaucrats sweeping powers to determine whether grandma gets her bypass surgery from Medicare, or a boot off the cliff…
…The main reason for the government’s out-of-control Medicare spending is that Uncle Sam picks up most of the tab for seniors’ health care, giving them little incentive to curb consumption or shop for better prices. Instead of restoring this incentive, Congress has historically tried to curb spending by cutting reimbursement rates for providers. But this has repeatedly failed because providers are politically powerful. Every time automatic cuts have loomed, Congress has undone them by passing the so-called “doc fix.” But instead of solving this problem by exposing doctors to market accountability, Obamacare tries to solve it by shielding the IPAB bureaucracy from political accountability…
