[…]
“One major problem is the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB is essentially a health-care rationing body. By setting doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price, the IPAB will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them.”
“There does have to be control of costs in our health-care system. However, rate setting…has a 40-year track record of failure….patients and physicians get aggravated because bureaucrats in either the private or public sector are making medical decisions without knowing the patients….these kinds of schemes do not control costs….”
“The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the IPAB, in its current form, won’t save a single dime before 2021…the IPAB will never control costs based on the long record of previous attempts in many of the states…”
“To date, 22 Democrats have joined Republicans in the House and Senate in support of legislation to do away with the IPAB.”
“The IPAB will cause frustration to providers and patients alike, and it will fail to control costs….”
The Affordable Care Act’s Rate-Setting Won’t Work
HOWARD DEAN
July 28, 2013