9. Strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)
The IPAB is a group of 15 health experts (generally appointed by the president and approved by the Senate) who are required to recommend ways to hold down Medicare spending growth if that growth exceeds a certain limit. The IPAB has the authority to reduce payments to some Medicare providers (e.g., hospitals, doctors), but it cannot raise beneficiary premiums or reduce their benefits. Some proposals would change the law to give the IPAB more authority so it could also reduce benefits, while other proposals would further limit the amount of Medicare spending growth, which could require the IPAB to further reduce spending on doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. Some would eliminate the IPAB altogether.
PRO: The IPAB is a promising way to limit the growth of Medicare spending without rationing care or cutting access to care by the elderly and disabled. It should be retained and strengthened so it can improve incentives for doctors, hospitals and other providers to deliver higher-quality care at reasonable cost. Some members of Congress want to kill the IPAB even before it goes to work because of a mistaken belief that it usurps congressional authority. It does not. Congress remains free to reverse any recommendations that the IPAB makes. It could even kill the IPAB with new legislation. But the creation of the IPAB expresses a congressional commitment to an important goal — slowing the growth of health care spending. (Henry J. Aaron, Brookings Institution)
CON: The IPAB was created in the new health law to cap total Medicare spending so it grows only a little more each year than the economy grows. To accomplish this, the 15 unelected board members will be able to cut payments each year to your physicians, hospitals or Medicare plan provider by however much it takes to stay under the spending cap. If Congress can’t agree on its own package of cuts, the board’s cuts will go into place automatically and nobody — not the courts or even Congress itself — can stop them. This board should not be strengthened. It should be dismantled. (Stuart Butler, Heritage Foundation)
