WASHINGTON, DC – The Coalition to Protect Patients’ Rights (CPPR) Spokesman Dr. Donald Palmisano last week traveled to Orlando and Tampa senior centers to discuss how the Affordable Care Act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) will result in diminished quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries across the country.

“IPAB is a panel of 15 unelected bureaucrats who will be charged with cutting what is expected to be billions of dollars a year from the Medicare program when spending exceeds targeted growth rates,” said Dr. Palmisano at Renaissance Senior Center in Orlando Florida. “IPAB’s cuts, which will most likely cut reimbursement rates doctors receive for treating Medicare patients, could leave doctors across the county no choice but to limit the amount of Medicare patients they see, or stop serving them altogether.  It is important that seniors push their lawmakers to repeal IPAB and keep Medicare decision making in the hands of Congress where it belongs.”

IPAB’s cost cutting decisions would become law unless overridden by a supermajority vote in Congress.  Congress would further be required to come up with a cost cutting package of equal size to sustain their override. IPAB is scheduled to make its first recommendations in 2015.