Howard Dean, liberal opponent of “Death Panels”
Remember when Sarah Palin was warning the world against the scary “Death Panels” of ObamaCare? We all laughed. Rightfully so. She’s an idiot and what she was referring to was end-of-life counseling. Ignore her.
Remember this past summer when a handful of Democrats stood up, for various reasons, against the actual “Death Panels” that would lead to senior citizens dying by a vote of an unelected panel? No? That’s because the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, is the rather inconvenient truth of ObamaCare and its mission to cull Medicare spending. It’s the real Death Panel.
Here’s how the IPAB works:
The President would appoint members who would then have to get confirmation by the Senate. The Panel, in a nutshell, has the power to determine if medical treatments are worth the expense. The duration and quality of life of a sick American lies in the Panel’s hands. Its mission is to reign in health costs. While IPAB does not have the explicit power to ration healthcare directly but it will wield that power in the next few years.
The Panel will have the power to cut payments to hospitals and even hospices in 2020. IPAB will be able to cut revenue to clinical labs in 2016. The Panel can cut physician fees now. So despite language in the IPAB’s charter, the body will soon have the power to ration life-or-death medical treatment.
ObamaCare begins in 2014 and Americans are still confused. The confusion makes headlines but the “Death Panel” is relegated to Bill Maher punchlines. Palin took an innocuous aspect of the Affordable Care Act and took our eyes off the real Death Panel ball. Forever conflated, forever ignored.
The under-the-radar fight against the Death Panel was fought last month. According to The Hill, former governor Howard Dean (D-VT), the AMA and the AHA are pushing for the repeal of the IPAB. As well as:
A wave of vulnerable Democrats over the past three months has signed on to bills repealing the board’s powers, including Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Elizabeth Esty (Conn.).
The cost-cutting board has been dogged with controversy over the last three years.
Major healthcare interests like the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association and the pharmaceutical lobby have supported IPAB repeal, saying the panel would cut providers’ pay arbitrarily.
Expansion of health care should not include “killing grandma” in essence. Forgive us for giving you another “slippery slope” argument but it will be a matter of time before we get used to Death Panels and it is extending to all ages. Yes, tell the government to get its hands off of Medicare (funny stuff)… and choosing who lives and who dies.
