Independent Payment Advisory Board: Difference between revisions

Congress created IPAB as a strengthened version of the [[Medicare Payment Advisory Commission]] (MedPAC), a body with no regulatory power that solely advises Congress, but cannot enact regulations in and of itself. Since 1997, MedPAC had recommended cuts totaling "hundreds of billions of dollars" to Medicare that were ignored by Congress.<ref name="Hill2">Mike Lillis. [https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/167585-gop-leaders-push-to-repeal-medicare-cost-cutting-panel/ “GOP leaders push to repeal Medicare cost-cutting panel.”] ''[[The Hill (newspaper)|The Hill]]''. (July 28, 2010).</ref> Congress has pressured Medicare administrators to cover "ineffective or needlessly costly methods of care," while Medicare's founding legislation says "Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize any Federal officer or employee to exercise any supervision or control over the practice of medicine."<ref name="Aaron">{{Cite journal | author= Henry J. Aaron | title = The Independent Payment Advisory Board – Congress's 'Good Deed' | journal = [[The New England Journal of Medicine]] |date=May 2011 | doi = 10.1056/NEJMp1105144 | pmid = 21561342 |url=http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=14433 | volume=364 | issue=25 | pages=2377–9| author-link = Henry J. Aaron }}</ref> Henry Aaron, a health care expert at the [[Brookings Institution]], said that many observers saw that some in Congress are "in thrall to campaign contributors and producers and suppliers of medical services" and most are not well enough informed to wisely use Medicare's buying power to reform health care.<ref name="Aaron"/> The idea behind the IPAB was to take power away from Congress (and [[special interests]]<ref name="EconMan">{{cite news |title=Rockefeller: The Economists' Man in the Senate? |author=David Leonhardt|newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 8, 2009 |url=https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/rockefeller-the-economists-man-in-the-senate/ |access-date=July 5, 2011|author-link=David Leonhardt}}</ref>) in order to give it to those knowledgeable in health care policy.<ref name="Canwe">{{cite news|title=Can we control costs without Congress? |author=Ezra Klein |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=March 26, 2010 |url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/can_we_control_costs_without_c.html |access-date=June 18, 2011 |archive-date=January 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120123022637/http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/can_we_control_costs_without_c.html |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all |author-link=Ezra Klein }}</ref>