A coalition of some 270 health care groups has formed to fight the creation of a new panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, mandated by the health care reform law and tasked with reigning in Medicare spending. The diverse groups fighting the panel consist of organizations representing physicians, health care providers and drug and medical product manufacturers, among others.
The job of the IPAB would be to recommend specific cuts to Medicare and would be staffed by experts appointed by the president. Although the panel's role would be to make recommendations on how and where to cut Medicare, recommended cuts would be realized automatically unless Congress votes against them. In order to do that, Congress would need to find equivalent savings elsewhere in the federal budget.
To protest the IPAB, the coalition wrote a letter to Congress stating, "We believe that the IPAB sets a dangerous precedent for overriding the normal legislative process. Congress is a representative body that has a duty to legislate on issues of public policy. [IPAB] removes our elected officials from the decision-making process for a program that millions of our nation's seniors and disabled individuals rely upon."
In their campaign against the panel, a number of Republican physicians held a press conference last week predicting that the IPAB will kill seniors. On the other side of the debate, many in Washington who have studied ways to reduce spending believe that a IPAB or a similar type of panel may be among the best ways to control skyrocketing health care costs.
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