Sen. John Barasso (R-WY) twice refused to say on Wednesday whether he agreed or disagreed with Sarah Palin’s mythic, universally debunked claim that the Affordable Care Act contains “death panels,” that determine whether individual patients receive lifesaving care based on their “level of productivity in society,” as she put it.
Asked by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell “If a constituent came to you and said, is she telling the truth, how would you respond?” Barasso went responded that “I want to eliminate the entire law, have the entire law repealed.”
He went on to note that “There is is a portion of the law, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, unelected bureaucrats that is going to determine, if anything, how much is paid for different kinds of care in this country.” IPAB, which is designed to monitor Medicare costs and look for savings, is specifically prohibited from engaging in anything resembling the activities Palin referenced.
Mitchell pressed again: “Do you believe that under the health care law that some sort of death panel is created?”
“I believe that the Independent Advisory Board is going to reimburse for health care for different procedures and treatments and by ratcheting down what they have been paying for different things, that is going to have an impact,” Barasso replied, “and we’ll basically result in denying care to people with the decision being made by an unelected group of bureaucrats as opposed to the decision being made by the doctor and the patient working together.”
