Gingrey calls the independent Medicare board set up by the health care law 'rationing.' Gingrey blasts Medicare panel

The much-maligned independent Medicare board created by the Democrats’ health reform law will cause seniors to die — and might actually be worse than “pushing grandmother over the cliff,” the co-chairman of the GOP House Doctors Caucus charged Wednesday afternoon.

The remarks from Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) came during a press conference in which more than a dozen Republican health care providers blasted the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of 15 experts created by the reform law to slow the growth of Medicare.


To Gingrey, the board is more dangerous than the House Medicare plan proposed by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan — the one Democrats have been using as a political weapon against Republicans because it would transform the program into subsidies for private health insurance.

“Democrats like to picture us as pushing grandmother over the cliff or throwing someone under the bus. In either one of those scenarios, at least the senior has a chance to survive,” Gingrey said.

“But under this IPAB we described that the Democrats put in Obamacare, where a bunch of bureaucrats decide whether you get care, such as continuing on dialysis or cancer chemotherapy, I guarantee you when you withdraw that the patient is going to die,” Gingrey said. “It’s rationing."

By supporting IPAB, “President Obama has already ended Medicare as we know it,” Gingrey said.

Republicans, led by Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), have targeted IPAB for elimination, claiming the unelected IPAB members will ration care for seniors. Roe wants House Speaker John Boehner to attach the IPAB repeal bill to legislation raising the debt ceiling.

A handful of Democrats have also signed onto the bill out of concerns the board will weaken congressional authority over Medicare.

Members of the IPAB board, which could make its first recommendations in 2014 if Medicare spending grows too fast, must be confirmed by the Senate. The health law specifically prohibits the board from rationing care.

While the Obama administration has been open to tweaking small parts of the health reform law, the IPAB won’t fall into that category. President Barack Obama, in his April budget speech, proposed strengthening the board.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 4:51 p.m. on June 22, 2011.

CORRECTION: A caption previously misspelled Rep. Phil Gingrey's name.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Alex Guillen @ 06/22/2011 05:30 PM A caption previously misspelled Rep. Phil Gingrey's name.