Rep. Black Votes to Protect Seniors from Medicare Rationing Board

Press Release

Today Congressman Diane Black (R-TN-06), a nurse for more than 40 years and member of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, voted to pass H.R. 1190, the Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act of 2015. If enacted, this legislation would repeal Obamacare's Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats tasked with cutting Medicare spending -- potentially by rationing health coverage.

Black was an original cosponsor of H.R. 1190 and spoke on the House floor in support of the legislation before today's vote.

Mister Speaker, in 2010 President Obama described his signature health care law as "A new set of rules that treats everyone fairly and honestly."

But under Obamacare's Independent Payment Advisory Board -- or "IPAB" -- a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats would be tasked with cutting Medicare costs in a way that could deny care to seniors who need it most.

Now, I've been a nurse for over 40 years, but you don't need to be a health care professional to understand that there's nothing fair about that.

Even Democrat Governor Howard Dean called IPAB "a health care rationing body" that should be scrapped.

Mister Speaker, no senior needs a Washington bureaucrat standing between them and their doctor.

Vote yes on H.R. 1190 and let's repeal IPAB today.

Background on IPAB:

Obamacare's Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a 15 person panel of healthcare "experts" handpicked by the President who are tasked with reducing the per-capita growth rate in Medicare spending. Under IPAB, if the projected spending on Medicare exceeds the target growth rate for that year, IPAB would develop proposals to reduce costs -- which could include cutting Medicare's payments for treatments -- that can be enacted without Congressional approval. As Congressman Black's office explained back in 2012, "If IPAB deems certain services and procedures as unnecessary, they can simply reimburse doctors at such a low rate that no physician would provide the care."

Opposition to IPAB is bipartisan. President Obama's own former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, Peter Orszag, called IPAB "The biggest yielding of power to an independent entity since the creation of the Federal Reserve." Additionally, as Congressman Black noted in her remarks, former Governor Howard Dean (D-VT) deemed IPAB "a health care rationing body" that "will cause frustration to providers and patients alike."

As a sign of just how unworkable IPAB is, President Obama has yet to nominate a single IPAB appointee, despite the President's healthcare law being in existence for more than five years. 11 Democrats joined Congressman Black and her Republican colleagues in supporting H.R. 1190 to repeal IPAB.

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