Howard Dean concedes that the Independent Payment Advisory Board is “essentially a health-care rationing body”
By Dave Andrusko Former governor of Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal this morning that truly qualifies as a “must-read.”
The headline and the subhead tell you the thrust of his argument—“The Affordable Care Act’s Rate-Setting Won’t Work: Experience tells me the Independent Payment Advisory Board will fail.”
Excuse me, what did Dean just say? That the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)–which NRLC has criticized repeatedly and at great length– is “essentially a health-care rationing body.” It “sets doctor reimbursement rates for Medicare and determining which procedures and drugs will be covered and at what price” and therefore “will be able to stop certain treatments its members do not favor by simply setting rates to levels where no doctor or hospital will perform them.”
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