Wanted: Obamacare Death Panelists

Republican Representative Phil Roe frequently gives speeches about what he calls the perils of Obamacare. A gynecologist from Tennessee, he’s especially worked up about one part of the law: the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a government-appointed panel intended to help slow the growth of Medicare spending. The 15-person IPAB will propose Medicare cost cuts if the growth in the program’s spending exceeds inflationary targets. But that’s not how Roe sees it. He envisions closed-door meetings where “unelected bureaucrats” make decisions that lead to rationing—a scenario hyped by Sarah Palin and other conservatives who warn the IPAB is really a “death panel” that will sit in judgment over Americans’ health claims, denying costly care to the old and weak. Roe is pushing a bill that would get rid of the board. “This is not something we want to do to our seniors,” he says.

Sounds scary. Except the IPAB doesn’t have anything close to that kind of power. The law makes it clear that the panel has no authority to ration care or cut benefits for Medicare recipients. It can’t touch reimbursements to hospitals until 2020. Instead, it’s expected to find savings by eliminating fraud and reducing payments to private insurance companies that work with Medicare and prescription drug providers. And it can only do that if the government is projected to spend more than it’s supposed to.