Republicans refuse to name members to healthcare panel

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell sent Obama a letter on Thursday saying they would not participate in picking members of a controversial panel called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB, which the reform law created to recommend ways to restrain Medicare spending if program cost growth exceeds set targets. "We believe Congress should repeal IPAB, just as we believe we ought to repeal the entire healthcare law," Boehner and McConnell said in their letter. House Republicans, who have voted to repeal or cut funding for the law three dozen times, intend to vote again next week on another repeal that is expected to pass the House. As before, that effort will go nowhere in the Democratically controlled Senate.