500 Groups Urge Congress To Kill Obama's IPAB Death Panel

Fierce Healthcare has;

500 Groups Urge Congress To Kill IPAB
April 26, 2013 | By Julie Bird


Pressure continues building to kill Medicare's Independent Payment Advisory Board, with more than 500 organizations banding together to send a letter to Congress on Thursday urging its repeal.

"We all share the conviction that the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) will not only severely limit Medicare beneficiaries' access to care but also increase healthcare costs that are shifted onto employers and working men and women in the private sector," executives from provider, employer, payer and other groups said in a letter from the Healthcare Leadership Council.

The objective of healthcare reform "shouldn't be to arbitrarily cut Medicare spending but rather to achieve better care and improved health outcomes. IPAB is not a mechanism geared to do that," Healthcare Leadership Council President Mary R. Grealy said yesterday in an accompanying announcement.

As now structured, the presidentially appointed 15-person IPAB will have the authority to recommend Medicare spending cuts, which the organizations said would almost entirely come in the form of reduced reimbursements to providers. A supermajority in both houses of Congress is required to overturn board recommendations, the letter noted.

The board will have "unprecedented power with little oversight, even though it has the power to literally change laws previously enacted by Congress," the letter read, noting administrative or judicial reviews of board recommendations implemented by the secretary of U.S. Department of Health & Human Services are prohibited.

"Requiring IPAB to achieve scoreable savings in a one-year time period is not conducive to generating savings through long-term delivery system reforms," the letter continued.
Providers, payers and others have been arguing for an IPAB repeal for some time.

The American Medical Association, for example, sent a letter more than a year ago to a congressional committee supporting proposed repeal legislation, saying it would compound problems caused by the existing physician payment formula.

"We have made it clear to Congress that the IPAB is another arbitrary system that could make the same dangerous type of overall cuts," AMA President Peter W. Carmel, M.D., said at the time.

And as long ago as June 2011, momentum was building in Congress to kill the board. Repeal attempts so far have failed, but Senate Republicans in February reintroduced a bill to repeal IPAB.
Meanwhile, President Obama's fiscal 2014 budget request triggers the board's actions earlier than the GDP plus 1 percent identified in the original legislation.

To learn more:
- read the HLC letter (.pdf)
- here's the announcement
- check out the AMA letter (.pdf)

Related Articles:
How health reform can help cut the federal deficit
Bill aims to repeal IPAB
House moves to shut out Independent Payment Advisory Board
Is the IPAB unconstitutional?
Independent Payment Advisory Board: Too much power, groups say


Thank You Fierce Healthcare and Ms Bird.



Here's More on the IPAB

The Daily Caller has;

Obama Backs IPAB Death Panel Again Despite Bipartisan Support For Repeal

Currently, a piece of bipartisan legislation in the House that would repeal the IPAB. That legislation has the support of several liberal stalwarts in the House — including Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank.

The legislation’s sponsor, Tennessee Republican Rep. Phil Roe told TheDC that IPAB is the “real death panel.”

“This one is the real baby right here — and most people missed this,” Roe told TheDC back in 2011. “What everybody was talking about, when you saw Sarah Palin and so forth, what they were talking about these advanced directives where you sit down and there’s sort of mandatory counseling — and Medicare paid for it. This IPAB got missed — and it’s the real death panel.”

Human Events has;

ROE FILES TO KILL 'DEATH PANELS'

"The AARP was a strong supporter of the president’s health care reforms, so it was a difficult crowd for Ryan.

Ryan said one problem with the panel was that its members’ decisions were not approved by Congress, rather it was up to Congress to disapprove its decisions by super-majorities.

The House Budget Committee chairman said another problem was that there was no requirement for the 15 board members to have medical training.

“But you know President Obama’s slogan, right?” he asked the seniors.

“Forward– Forward into a future where seniors are denied the care they earned because a bureaucrat decided it wasn’t worth the money,” said Ryan, who was the 2012 Human Events Conservative of the Year.

Roe said, “I will continue to push for a full repeal of the IPAB, and I look forward to working with my colleagues—both Republicans and Democrats—to protect and preserve Medicare.”

Freedom Works has;

Let's Repeal The IPAB Death Panel

"IPAB isn’t just bad policy. More importantly, it’s also unquestionably unconstitutional. Columnist George Will describes IPAB as, “an executive agency, its members appointed by the president, exercising legislative powers over which neither Congress nor the judiciary can exercise proper control.” Does that sound like a program that follows the constitutional principle of the separation of powers? No executive agency should be allowed to exercise legislative authority. Yet, that’s exactly what IPAB does.

Congress is trying to pass the buck on difficult decisions regarding Medicare costs by delegating away the lawmaking power. This way, they can take credit for health care reform and spending cuts while shifting away blame for the specific cuts put in place by IPAB. It’s spineless and damaging to constitutional government. Worse yet, the ObamaCare law expressly forbids the courts from striking down IPAB. As George Will suggested, IPAB is a part of the executive branch that wields the legislative power without congressional or judicial oversight.

In effect, this means that IPAB will be the only judge of the law that it creates and executes. Such an accumulation of powers would be reprehensible to the Founders. As James Madison argues inThe Federalist Papers, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Thanks to one and all.

It's the Obama Jobs Plan. 

Hire another Army of Worse than Useless Psychologists to peddle Don't Worry, be Happy, you wouldn't want to be a burden to society, would you, . . . after We took those payroll deductions out of your ass for your Entire Working Life because YOU couldn't be trusted with the money YOU broke your ass for, . . . 'End of Life' Bullshit, . . . and a referral to a Quack for a Happy Pill prescription.

pic creds to healthinsurancecolorado.org and conservativefocus.com


The IPAB is Unconstitutional:


The 5th Amendment States:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

And as Harry Truman said:

"The Buck Stops Here."

There is No higher Law.