Posted on 04/22/2011 7:19:49 AM PDT by freespirited
Contemplating the 2012 election that can already be seen looming on the distant horizon, the President's advisors were no doubt hoping that the "death panel" debate was dead. But Obama himself inadvertently resurrected it when ...he claimed that Medicare costs will be kept under control by the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
Obamacare opponents have been screaming about this committee since it was first added to the "reform" bill. And, since that time, anyone with the temerity to call it by its proper name -- death panel -- has been vilified by the Democrats and the "news" media. Nonetheless, that's precisely what IPAB will be. Its sole purpose is to cut funding for some health care services seniors now take for granted. And those cuts will kill people.
IPAB's ostensible purpose is to "control costs." In reality, it will do nothing about costs. Instead, the board's fifteen "experts" will impose old-fashioned price controls. Before Obamacare was signed into law, only Congress had the power to make changes to Medicare's reimbursement rates. But PPACA transfers that power to this cadre of presidential appointees. In theory, IPAB can only propose changes to Medicare's payment rates. In practice, however, the board's proposals will take effect automatically unless Congress passes contrary legislation and the President signs it into law.
This concentrates a huge amount of power in these fifteen people. As Obama's former Director of the OMB phrased it last year in a discussion at the Economic Club of Washington: "This institution could prove to be far more important to the future of our fiscal health than the Congressional Budget Office. It has an enormous amount of potential power." This comment suggests that the Obama administration always intended to maintain the country's "fiscal health" by stinting on Granny's physical health.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Great. Lets "further improve" the entire federal government by cutting the budget of every agency.
“further improving”
How very Orwellian of him.
IPAB- “I Propose A Burial”
“This concentrates a huge amount of power in these fifteen people.”
That is what Federal legislation has been all about the past few decades. Avoid responsibility and concentrate the power. BRAC is just such a move. Continual Congressional avoidance of responsibility, while they stick their noses in things the Constitution NEVER authorized them to.
“further improve” the entire federal government by cutting the budget of every agency”?
How about eliminating so very many agencies and departments that are absolutely worthless at best or a drag on society at worst.
The elderly are entitled to spend their own money on all the health care they want, and God bless ‘em.
Once they burn through that first $60-$80 thousand, they have gotten back everything they paid into Medicare.
At that point, they need to pay their own way, rather than using the confiscated income of their kids and grandkids.
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