Most people have never heard of the US Preventive Services Task Force, which is part of why this is happening quietly. Its function is narrow and consequential: it assigns letter grades to preventive services, and an A or B grade obliges state Medicaid programs and most private insurers to cover that service with no copay and no deductible [1]. Mammograms, colonoscopies and pap tests are on that list [1].
The panel normally seats 16 experts. It has shrunk by half [1].
Four meetings have been canceled. In May the two vice chairs, Esa Davis and John Wong, were ousted, and expiring terms went unfilled [1]. The result is a body that has not met in 17 months, scheduled to reconvene in late August with eight new members the Department of Health and Human Services is preparing to name [1].
The vetting is being run narrowly. Roger Klein, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is screening candidates primarily with his own staff, and the former vice chairs have been excluded from the input process that would ordinarily apply [1].
The pause has already had effects. Votes on prostate cancer screening and on weight-loss counseling were among those blocked by the canceled meetings [1], which leaves the grades governing insurer coverage for both where they were.
Mike Silverstein, a former co-chair, drew the comparison directly, saying Kennedy is 'doing the same thing as he did for ACIP,' only 'in slow motion' [1]. John Ruiz, a psychologist whose term ended in January, put it more simply: 'This feels more like a political process now' [1].
