RetireSafe to House: Pass H.R. 452 and Repeal IPAB Now!

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, on behalf of its 400,000 senior citizen supporters nationwide, RetireSafe again called on the United States House of Representatives to move H.R. 452, the "Medicare Decisions Accountability Act," authored by Congressman Phil Roe, MD and cosponsored by 226 Members of the House, forward to passage as quickly as possible to fully repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board or "IPAB." RetireSafe President Thair Phillips urged the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Health to "cleanly markup the bill this week and send it to the full Energy and Commerce Committee for passage to the House floor for a vote." "Ways and Means should vote repeal as well, as this is one section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that Democrats and Republicans, patients, physicians and other health care providers agree must be repealed," he said. Phillips added, "Opposition to IPAB grows daily, and it should be repealed now, before it harms patients."

"By its design, IPAB is intended only to cut spending to providers and thus cut access to care for patients," he continued. Phillips called IPAB "the ultimate realization of the bureaucratic 'rationing board' that every Medicare patient fears." "IPAB's mission is to hit a specific spending target annually based on a flawed inflation formula and to then decimate payments to critical health care providers, regardless of the collateral damage to Medicare beneficiaries," he stated. 

Phillips called the IPAB design "especially insidious because of its ability to act almost unchecked by Congress." "To give a Presidentially-appointed, fifteen-member IPAB that kind of patient-harming power is a mistake," he said.  Phillips noted, "These are life and death decisions that will impact millions of Medicare patients, and Congress must not allow its powers to decide these critical matters be usurped by IPAB."

"That's why more than half of the House is cosponsoring H.R. 452 and working for its passage," Phillips said. "RetireSafe urges every Member of the House to support H.R. 452 and the repeal of IPAB," he concluded.

CONTACT: Thair Phillips, 202-628-5095, [email protected]

SOURCE RetireSafe