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When the unelected government officials on this board submit a legislative proposal to Congress, it automatically becomes law: PPACA requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement it. Blocking an IPAB "proposal" requires at a minimum that the House and the Senate and the president agree on a substitute. The Board's edicts therefore can become law without congressional action, congressional approval, meaningful congressional oversight, or being subject to a presidential veto. Citizens will have no power to challenge IPAB's edicts in court.

So if the IPAB decides that redheads should not be treated for breast cancer because some "govt" study shows that cancer treatments are not effective on that group, they can be eliminated from coverage? (insert any other stupid idea there)....and unless the House, Senate, and President all catch on to this ridiculous edict and all agree on some "substitute", it will become law? And, let's say those folks are asleep at the wheel, and I happen to be a redhead who develops breat cancer, I can't challenge their reccomendations in court? IOW, I'm toast?

This is beyond frightening. The "brilliant" chief justice Roberts thought this was constitutional?

.....because some “govt” study shows that cancer treatments are not effective on that group....

In the Soviet Union, Stalin set up a guy named Lysenko to direct their agriculture programs. He conducted ‘research’ on techniques to grow crops. It didn’t matter that his so called research could not be verified by other scientist or agricultural workers. His conclusions were considered to be the law of the land. They had very poor crop production under Lysenko, and people that tried to oppose him were persecuted in various ways

I believe all this crap about using research to determine the ‘best’ ways to conduct medicine is really a way to place the absolute power into the hands of a few gov’t officials. Once they make the statement that “research shows...”, or “our study suggests....”, then nobody will be able to challenge (legally) their dictates. This is also the direction that public education is headed.