Letter: Final power is in hands of Congress
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
A recent mailing from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, attacks the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. She calls out the act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board as putting senior’s access to health care at risk.
Without identifying the board’s purposes or methods, she attacks it specifically as being unaccountable to the public.
It is true that the IPAB is empowered to make changes in the Medicare program. What is equally important is that the Congress, including Herrera Butler, is empowered to overrule any changes the board recommends. Herrera Beutler’s misrepresentation of the act does us a disservice.
Stephen Kral
Vancouver
