The Hill News

What if I told you there was a country where medical decisions were made not by doctors in consultation with their patients, but by a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats who determine the fate of millions of Americans? You would probably think that such a system would only exist thousands of miles off our shores, where access to even the most rudimentary healthcare is reserved for the privileged few. You would be incorrect.
 
When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, it created the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) with the intent of slowing future spending growth of Medicare, which already consumes $468 billion of our federal budget and is projected to rise ever higher. But Congress decided to give the Board unprecedented power to make cuts to Medicare where they see fit, and only a supermajority vote can overturn them. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health will vote on HR 452, the Medicare Decisions Accoun! tability Act, which would repeal IPAB and send a clear signal that the American people will only fully except the ACA when all of its fatal flaws, chief among them IPAB, are rectified.

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