[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 103 (Thursday, June 25, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E991]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PERSONAL EXPLANATION

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JOE COURTNEY

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 25, 2015

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the House voted on H.R. 
1190, the Protecting Seniors Access to Medicare Act. Although I was not 
present for the vote, I wanted to make my position on this bill clear. 
While I strongly support repeal of the Independent Payment Advisory 
Board, or IPAB, and have long supported bipartisan legislation to do 
so, I would have voted against this bill due to the attachment of a 
partisan and misguided amendment that undermines another important 
piece of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
  I share the concern of many of my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle that the IPAB relinquishes control of Medicare provider 
reimbursements to an unelected group, which is problematic to me for a 
number of reasons. Congress has helped shape a Medicare system that 
reflects the unique care needs of varying demographics, and differences 
between regions and states. Further, this system has been developed 
with transparency and accountability in congressional debates. And, 
reforms like better coordination of care and enhanced waste, fraud, and 
abuse abatement measures have already helped slow Medicare spending to 
historic lows.
  Since the enactment of the ACA, the Congressional Budget Office has 
consistently found that other measures in the law have helped keep 
health care spending at record lows. While I remain committed to 
strengthening Medicare's finances for current and future generations, I 
do not believe that IPAB is the best strategy to achieve this goal. 
While annual spending bills passed by Congress over the last several 
years have denied funding to support IPAB thus rendering it inoperable, 
I agree that the best course of action would be to remove it entirely 
from the law. That is why I have consistently cosponsored bipartisan 
legislation to do just that.
  I am disappointed, therefore, that the Republican-led House chose to 
take a highly bipartisan bill and turn it, once again, into a highly 
partisan vehicle to further undermine a key component of the ACA. The 
amendment that was added to the bill as it headed to the floor would 
tie repeal to gutting the Prevention and Public Health Fund section of 
the law. Funds from this section of the ACA go towards Alzheimer's 
Disease Prevention Education and Outreach, towards the Breast and 
Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, to the Heart Disease and 
Stroke Prevention Program, and to the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide 
Prevention fund, among other programs in 2015 alone.
  I strongly support the ACA and its implementation, but agree with 
many of my colleagues that it is by no means perfect. It is time for 
this chamber to work on a truly bipartisan basis to strengthen and 
improve the law. I stand ready to work across the aisle to repeal IPAB 
and to make other commonsense changes to the law--but hope that we can 
do so in a thoughtful and balanced way, which unfortunately this bill 
did not.

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