RE: Support passage of H.R. 849, the Protecting Seniors’ Access to Medicare Act of 2017
Dear Chairman Brady and Ranking Member Neal:
As the Alliance of Specialty Medicine (Alliance), our mission is to advocate for sound federal health care
policy that fosters patient access to the highest quality specialty care. As patient and physician advocates,
we write to thank you for scheduling committee consideration of H.R. 849, the Protecting Seniors’ Access
to Medicare Act of 2017, authored by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) and Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA).
The Alliance strongly opposes the IPAB or any other board resulting in an inappropriate delegation of
Congress’ oversight responsibilities. Significant health care decisions must not be made by a group of
unelected, unaccountable individuals with little or no clinical expertise orthe oversight required to protect
access to care for America’s seniors. The Alliance is concerned that the IPAB will arbitrarily ratchet down
provider reimbursement, without sufficient oversight and without care taken to ensure that Medicare
beneficiaries receive the quality health care that they need and deserve. Further, the Board is required
to selectively exempt certain providers from its purview – placing more pressure to cut Medicare
reimbursements in areas under its jurisdiction.
The Alliance understands and appreciates concerns with the rising costs of health care. However, the
process and structure of the IPAB is fraught with potential unintended consequences and the IPAB lacks
the clinical expertise and the research capacity to examine the national and regional effects of proposed
recommendations to ensure patients are not unduly impacted.
We appreciate your consideration and urge the committee to favorably report out H.R. 849 which would
repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
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