(WASHINGTON TIMES) — The Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to repeal a Medicare cost-cutting panel that was part of President Obama’s health care overhaul, delivering a carefully timed blow to his signature accomplishment one day before the two-year anniversary of his signing it into law.
Lawmakers voted 223-181 to do away with the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), marking the 26th time the House has voted to partially or completely repeal the sweeping overhaul in Republicans’ ongoing effort to undermine the president’s chief domestic reform at every turn.
Illustrating their bitterness over nearly all of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans complained that IPAB would severely undercut Medicare by giving a 15-member panel of appointees power to cut physician reimbursements — and blasted it as just another piece of a law they see as flawed to the core.
