Michigan Physicians Ask Congress to put Patients First, Repeal Controversial Health Care Rationing Board.
Elimination of IPAB would Support Michigan Seniors, Reestablish Transparency and Taxpayer Oversight.
LANSING—The Michigan Osteopathic Association, representing nearly 5,000 member physicians from across the state, this week sent a formal letter urging Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow as well as the state’s members in the U.S. House of Representatives to repeal the controversial health care rationing Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
Created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, IPAB is a 15 member panel with almost no oversight and the unprecedented power to effectively ration health care through Medicare, threatening to take medical decisions away from patients and physicians in local doctors’ offices and put those decisions instead in the hands of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
“Michigan physicians strongly hope that our elected representatives in Congress will stand with patients and doctors,” said Kurt C. Anderson, D.O., President of the Michigan Osteopathic Association’s Board of Trustees. “IPAB will only compound the already challenging problem of patient access to both health care providers and therapies. We urge Congress to repeal the Advisory Board immediately so doctors and patients make health care decisions, not bureaucrats thousands of miles away.”
On Tuesday, March 6 the United States House Energy and Commerce Committee approved H.R. 452, a measure that would repeal IPAB. The full House of Representatives is expected to vote on the resolution this month.
The Michigan Osteopathic Association represents more than 8,000 osteopathic physicians and students and promotes osteopathic medicine in Michigan by shaping the health care delivery system to better serve the community. To learn more about the MOA and osteopathic medicine, visit the MOA website at www.mi-osteopathic.org.
