GOP slams White House health-care wonks

[Geee]

Daily Caller:

Top Republicans are spotlighting the White House’s health-care rationing board following a week of Democratic efforts to paint the GOP’s Medicare reform as doom for retirees.

“Rationing care from Washington bureaucrats is not the answer to fixing Medicare,” budget committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan said in a statement to The Daily Caller. “Empowering individuals and personalizing Medicare is needed to ensure this program is stable and secure for current and future beneficiaries.”

On Wednesday, the two Republican chairmen of the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked the White House to explain the President’s recent suggestions that the Independent Payment Advisory Board be given more power to cut medical spending.

The committees are trying to reform the fast-growing Medicare program, and “we require much more information before we can properly consider the savings targets you have proposed,” wrote Michigan Reps. Dave Camp and Fred Upton. “We ask that you provide this additional clarification so that we can fully understand and evaluate the new Medicare proposals you have put forward.”

The IPAB was established by the Democrats’ Obamacare bill to control health-care costs by denying or approving medical treatments for millions of Americans. It does not have authority over the Medicare program, but Obama suggested in his April 13 speech that its role be expanded to help reduce the annual deficit.