Saving Medicare from the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)

We should do everything in our power to preserve benefits for current Medicare recipients and to ensure that the program will continue to be solvent in the future.  Congressman Lungren is committed to preserving the Medicare program as-is for everyone 55 and older.

Beginning in 2013, an unelected board will start proposing cuts to Medicare payments. This panel – the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) – was created under the President's health care law.  Not only is the IPAB not elected, but no practicing physician may serve on the Board.  Congressman Lungren has always maintained that health care decisions should be made between the patient and doctor.  It should not be up to Congress – and certainly not to a remote Board that is not accountable to the public for its decisions.

By cutting payment rates to medical providers, the IPAB will make it increasingly difficult for doctors to serve Medicare patients.  Medicare already reimburses providers at a lower rate than private insurers.  Because Congressman Lungren wants to ensure that your Medicare benefits remain stable, he has co-sponsored the Medicare Decisions Accountability Act which will repeal the IPAB.  Your doctors, not the unaccountable Members of IPAB, should be making health care decisions with you based on your needs.

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