60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin: “Only rationale for IPAB is to ration care, it should be axed.”

(Alexandria, Virginia) – 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin, head of the most influential conservative seniors advocacy group in the nation, today issued a statement regarding HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius’ testimony before the House Budget Committee regarding page 1000 of the ObamaCare legislation, dealing with the Independent Patient Advisory Board (IPAB):

“Like the sword of Damocles, the mysterious and unelected IPAB dangles perilously overhead, holding the life and death of millions of America’s seniors within its power.  It alone can decide what health care procedures and medicines will be included in Medicare coverage, meaning it alone can ration care for millions of seniors and decide who lives and who dies.

“Secretary Sibelius has already led us astray when caught double-counting the proclaimed Medicare savings from ObamaCare. We can’t afford to take her or the Administration at face value when they tell us that IPAB will not have power to ration care, and to just ‘relax.’

“Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) is both a leader on Medicare legislation and a doctor.  When he tells us that IPAB has the potential to not only ration medicine, but fundamentally undermine the doctor /patient relationship by injecting an entire government bureaucracy into the equation, I and most Americans paying attention to this critical debate believe him.

“This Administration is beyond us taking them at their word.  Page 1000 of ObamaCare is very clear, absent a supermajority of Congress opposing their decisions, IPAB can and will hold the fate of every Medicare recipient, and by extension every American in private health insurance, under their sword.  IPAB should be axed, plain and simple, then we won’t have to worry about exactly how much power it has over our health care any longer.”

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