Opinion: Medicare Spending Panel Should Be Scrapped
In an Orange County Register opinion piece, Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, writes, "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are coming together to oppose" the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which was created under the federal health reform law. She notes that the 15-expert board "will be tasked with making binding recommendations to reduce Medicare per capita spending if costs exceed defined targets, beginning in 2014." Turner argues that "the IPAB will have the power to stifle innovation and harm seniors' access to medical care." She concludes that as "lawmakers look for ways to make Medicare sustainable for the future, ... [t]he first step is to scrap the IPAB, with its government-appointed experts and their top-down, centralized control over Medicare."
- "Grace-Marie Turner: Medicare-Cutting Panel Should Be Blocked" (Turner, Orange County Register, 8/15).