Praises Senator Cornyn’s Bill to Strip Power from Unaccountable Bureaucrats over American Seniors’ Health Decisions

Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.

Today, Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) responded to President Obama’s recent remarks regarding Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). 

While the President claims the IPAB will slow the growth of Medicare costs, Senator Barrasso told the rest of the story.  He explained that the IPAB is made up of 15 unelected Washington bureaucrats and would have sole authority to decide which treatments should receive Medicare funding. 

Recently, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the “Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act” (S. 668) to repeal the IPAB and ensure Washington bureaucrats no longer come between patients and their doctors. 

As a cosponsor of this bill, Senator Barrasso discussed S. 668 and the IPAB on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

On Senator Cornyn’s Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act:

“Senator Cornyn has a Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act.  This bill will repeal this board in order to ensure the doctor-patient relationship that is important for quality health care for all Americans is maintained and I’m happy to cosponsor that with Senator Cornyn. We will continue to fight to repeal and to replace this very broken health care law.”

Barrasso on IPAB:

“Well, what this is—this is a Washington commission, a commission in the health care law that many know as IPAB.  It may sound harmless.  It stands for the Independent Payment Advisory Board.  And Americans, I believe, need to know more about the details about how this will actually work.

“Many Americans may not remember that the health care law created this unelectable, unaccountable board of Washington bureaucrats who will be appointed by the president and the sole purpose is to cut Medicare spending based on arbitrary budget targets.

“This board empowers 15 unelected Washington bureaucrats to make these Medicare cuts all without full transparency and accountability to American seniors and to elected officials.

“Let’s take a look at what happens when this board actually makes recommendation.  The recommendation will become law unless the House and the Senate each adopt, not by simple majority, each adopt by a three-fifths majority a resolution to block them.  Then the House and Senate have to pass legislation to achieve equivalent savings of what this board claims to be saving by the care that they deny.

“Well, this is an incredible concentration of power that should belong in Congress, not to a board of unelected individuals who are appointed by the President.”

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