WASHINGTON – House Republicans have made good on their promise to kill the Independent Payment Advisory Board with the passage on June 23 of H.R. 1190, the Protecting Seniors’ Access to Medicare Act of 2015. The vote was 244-154 and fell mostly along party lines.
Many physician organizations, including the American Medical Association, have opposed the IPAB from the very beginnings of the Affordable Care Act. The panel has never been convened, and since Congress has never appropriated funds for the IPAB, the new legislation has no practical impact on practicing physicians.
Alicia Ault/Frontline Medical News
According to Dr. Kavita Patel, health policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, the IPAB was designed as an objective, appointed commission to make direct recommendations that would become law if Medicare spending exceeded a certain target. Congress could overturn any IPAB legislation with a supermajority vote, Dr. Patel said in an interview.
Opponents of the IPAB, including House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), have criticized it as an approach to cost containment, since the panel’s decisions would not require ratification by Congress.
“This unelected panel exists only to take control away from patients and rations care – and it’s seniors who will suffer the consequences,” Rep. Ryan said in a statement.
In the Senate, the bill is known as S.141. It has been referred to the Finance Committee but no action had been taken at press time.
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