IPAB

Independent Payment Advisory Board aka Death Panel. Apparently the definition depends upon your perspective...

 

 

For the record the AMA continues to fight for the elimination of the IPAB which will impose arbitrary across-the-board cuts to physicians and other providers.

 

Last week I presented you with the Senate rule change. Now the reasons for Reid's abrupt proposal to change the rules are clear - it paves the way for President Obama to stack the advisory board, unobstructed, with his choices. Or, maybe, for Valerie Jarret to pay back her supporters... 

 

IPAB Board members are to include:

1. 15 members appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. In selecting individuals for nominations for appointments to the Board, the President shall consult with: (i) the majority leader of the Senate concerning the appointment of 3 members; (ii) the Speaker of the House of Representatives concerning the appointment of 3 members; (iii) the minority leader of the Senate concerning the appointment of 3 members; and (iv) the minority leader of the House of Representatives concerning the appointment of 3 members;
2. The HHS Secretary, the Administrator of CMS, and the Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration (all of whom will serve ex officio as nonvoting members of the Board).

The question of whether one's life is worth saving or one's condition is worth treating is a key part of the Affordable Care Act, even while being eclipsed by political maneuverings and enrollment difficulties. And having that decision made by a body such as IPAB has led to legislative efforts to pull the plug on the ACA itself.

Amazingly, or maybe not considering the rats are jumping off the sinking ACA ship, a House bill to repeal IPAB attracted 22 Democrat co-sponsors. Arkansas Democrat Sen. Mark Pryor co-sponsored a Senate repeal bill after spending the previous three years defending IPAB. The Senate and House measures had, at last count, 32 and 192 co-sponsors, respectively. Under the Affordable Care Act, the IPAB's board of 15 presidentially appointed "experts" will be empowered to make arbitrary Medicare spending-cut decisions with virtually no congressional oversight or control. Its decisions will not be made on an individual level, but it will decide what treatments and therapies are cost-effective and therefore covered, affecting and possibly costing the lives of those in need of them.

It has been documented for years how socialized medicine around the world, particularly Britain's National Health Service, makes centralized decisions based on cost-effectiveness rather than medical need, and how this has led to rationing and denial of service. People literally die while on waiting lists. The ACA tries to apply that same approach to Medicare through IPAB.

According to an article by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, 'the surest way to avoid rationing is to adequately compensate providers. One way to ensure adequate reimbursement that also allows market forces to work freely is to enroll more people in private insurance'.

Yet the President and his (suddenly) dissipating group of ACA supporters are going out of their way to reassure us that despite the IPAB's sole function of saving money by restricting access to health care - deciding if one's life is worth saving or one's condition is worth treating - there are no death panels.

JULIET:
      'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
      Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
      What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
      And for that name which is no part of thee
      Take all myself.
-From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600

What matters is what something is, not what it is called.

America - our future IS in your hands. Dr. Ben Carson sums it up like this - "We've got to bring courage and bravery back." "Our goals are to return healthcare to the practitioner and to the patient, and not have a third party making medical decisions for people, and finding an appropriate way to pay for it. That's what we want to do."