Roberts Amendment (#3577) on Critical Access Hospitals and IPAB
Senator Roberts has offered an amendment (#3577) regarding the impact of the Independent Payment Advisory Board on critical access hospitals.
Summary:
- The amendment exempts critical access hospitals in rural areas from cuts proposed by the Independent Payment Advisory Board.
- The amendment is paid for by lowering the affordability exemption in the individual mandate from 8 percent of income to 5 percent. The affordability exemption creates a threshold so that people who do not have access to affordable health insurance (that costs less than the threshold) do not have to pay the individual mandate penalty. In the underlying bill this threshold is 8 percent of income; this revenue raiser lowers the threshold to 5 percent of income so more people have to pay. This provision was accepted by members on both sides during the Senate Finance Committee mark-up.
Arguments in Favor:
- President Obama has previously made comments that there needs to be a “difficult democratic conversation” about what he views as excessive spending on end-of-life care, raising serious questions about whether or not the new bureaucracies created in the health law will be used to allow government bureaucrats to deny access to life-saving treatments.
- Several of the President’s senior advisors have also written positively about government bureaucrats intervening in personal health decisions, stating that “waiting lines represent a trade-off between patient costs and capital costs,” and that while “delays in access to high-technology care will, in some instances, lead to worse health for particular patients,” waiting times will “on average…have minimal effects.”
- Critical access hospitals provide important life-saving medical services to individuals in rural areas, and additional arbitrary cuts imposed by a board of unelected bureaucrats could have significant negative impacts on access to care.
- Doctors and patients are the best individuals to determine the proper health choices for individuals, not government bureaucrats.