If this is rationing, bring it on!(LETTERS) (Letter to the editor)

• Author: Irving, Nancy

With regard to Sebastian Jones's piece on House Democrats working to destroy the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) ["Friends Like These," July/August 2011], the GOP and conservative Democrats are demagoguing IPAB by calling its mission "rationing." Rationing implies depriving people of needed treatments, the exact opposite of what IPAB is tasked to do: dispense with useless or harmful treatments in order to improve outcomes and address health care cost inflation.

I can offer personal testimony that it is not patients who are driving the anti-IPAB story. I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, and I underwent chemotherapy, radiation, and hormone therapy. I hope that all of these treatments were effective. But all were unpleasant or exhausting and caused debilitating side effects, and some may have permanently affected...