Obama's Death Panel: A Double Dose of Anti-Constitutional Outrages

Obamacare's death panel, a.k.a. the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), is a constitutional travesty:

The point of PPACA [Obamacare] is cost containment. This supposedly depends on the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, which is a perfect expression of the progressive mind, is to be composed of 15 presidential appointees empowered to reduce Medicare spending - which is 13 percent of federal spending - to certain stipulated targets. IPAB is to do this by making "proposals" or "recommendations" to limit costs by limiting reimbursements to doctors. This, inevitably, will limit available treatments - and access to care when physicians leave the Medicare system.

The PPACA repeatedly refers to any IPAB proposal as a "legislative proposal" and speaks of "the legislation introduced" by the IPAB. Each proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes a measure cutting medical spending as much as IPAB would.

This is a travesty of lawmaking: An executive branch agency makes laws unless Congress enacts legislation to achieve the executive agency's aim.

And it gets worse. Any resolution to abolish the IPAB must pass both houses of Congress. And no such resolution can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. And if passed, it cannot take effect until 2020. It is transparently designed to permanently entrench IPAB - never mind the principle that one Congress cannot by statute bind another Congress from altering that statute.

...the IPAB is doubly anti-constitutional. It derogates the powers of Congress. And it ignores the separation of powers: It is an executive agency, its members appointed by the president, exercising legislative powers over which neither Congress nor the judiciary can exercise proper control.

[emphasis added]

Note that the author, George Will, assumes that physicians will be leaving the system en masse. In my humble opinion, he is correct in doing so.

In all the excitement over Anthony's Weiner, this important piece by George Will has been largely overlooked. Go read the rest and share it with your friends.