{"id":14993,"date":"2012-07-07T16:21:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-07T20:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=14993"},"modified":"2012-07-07T16:21:29","modified_gmt":"2012-07-07T20:21:29","slug":"ipab-should-be-next-obamacare-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/14993\/ipab-should-be-next-obamacare-target\/","title":{"rendered":"IPAB Should Be Next ObamaCare Target"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2012\/07\/06\/ipab-the-part-of-obamacare-that-cant-be-repealed\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Wesley J. Smith<\/a> reminds us why with ObamaCare\u2019s individual mandate safe for now, conservative litigators should focus on striking down the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the unelected, unaccountable group of \u201cexperts\u201d charged with controlling costs under ObamaCare.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s not much time left:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>According to the terms of the Affordable Care Act, IPAB must submit its first draft recommendations to the health and human services secretary by September 1, 2013. Its first Medicare cost-cutting goals <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kff.org\/healthreform\/upload\/7961-02.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">must<\/a><\/em> become law by August 15, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Why did I write \u201cmust\u201d become law\u201d instead of \u201cmay\u201d? IPAB\u2019s unique \u201cfast track\u201d authority divests Congress of discretion regarding the amount of money to be cut from Medicare once IPAB has submitted its \u201cadvice.\u201d Get a load of these legislative handcuffs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>By January 15, 2014, IPAB must submit a proposal to Congress and the president for reaching Medicare savings targets in the coming year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The majority leaders in the House and Senate <em>must <\/em>introduce bills incorporating the board\u2019s proposal <em>the day they receive it<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Congress cannot \u201cconsider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report \u2026\u2009that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the board\u201d if such changes fail to meet the board\u2019s budgetary target.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>By April 1, all legislative committees must complete their evaluation. <em>Any committee that fails to meet the deadline is barred from further consideration of the bill<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>If Congress does not pass the proposal or a substitute plan meeting the IPAB\u2019s financial target before August\u202f15, or if the president vetoes the proposal passed by Congress, <em>the original Independent Payment Advisory Board recommendations automatically take effect<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not only that, but Congress cannot consider any bill or amendment that would repeal or change this fast-track congressional consideration process without a three-fifths vote in the Senate. And to put the icing on the autocratic cake, implementation of the board\u2019s policy is exempted from administrative or judicial review.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Unlike the rest of ObamaCare, IPAB cannot be repealed easily because its enabling statute \u201centrenches\u201d it from being altered by later Congresses.\u00a0 Thus, banking on a President Romney and a Republican Congress to get rid of it won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/commentary\/56\/1330-the-critical-obamacare-law-the-supreme-court-wont-decide-this-term-\" target=\"_blank\">written before <\/a>about the federal case in Arizona challenging IPAB.\u00a0 It was on hold awaiting the Supreme Court\u2019s decision on the individual mandate.\u00a0 With the mandate redefined as a tax, the IPAB litigation will proceed, perhaps with a Supreme Court hearing as early as spring 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Keep an eye on this one.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to see how an unaccountable board of bureaucrats empowered to control costs could morph into a health care rationing board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wesley J. Smith reminds us why with ObamaCare\u2019s individual mandate safe for now, conservative litigators should focus on striking down the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the unelected, unaccountable group of \u201cexperts\u201d charged with controlling costs under ObamaCare. There\u2019s not much time left: According to the terms of the Affordable Care Act, IPAB must submit its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2033,84,3308,2617,235,35,1001,3683],"class_list":["post-14993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2033","tag-congress","tag-health","tag-ipab","tag-medicare","tag-obamacare","tag-repeal","tag-wesley-j-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14993"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14999,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14993\/revisions\/14999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}