U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine.
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Two senators introduced a resolution Tuesday evening to preserve the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, following reports that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may soon fire its current members.
Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine and Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sponsored the resolution.
“Prevention is at the heart of how we need to approach the cost of health care in this country,” King said, in an interview with NPR. “To see that process disrupted would be a huge blow to the health of Americans.”
The resolution recognizes the “important work” of the Task Force, which has convened voluntary, independent medical experts to review evidence and make recommendations for primary care physicians since 1984. Since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, its recommendations have been tied to services and medicines that most health insurers must cover without co-pays.
These include “screenings for heart disease, screenings for breast, colorectal, cervical, and lung cancer, and folic acid supplements for women to prevent birth defects in their babies,” along with recommendations to prevent “the most common causes of chronic disease in the United States [including] smoking, obesity, high blood sugar, hypertension, and high cholesterol” in children and adults, the resolution states.
It calls for the Task Force to continue without interruption or delay, and to “continue to be grounded in transparent, evidence-based review that is based on vetted, proven, and scientifically demonstrated studies.”
In response to reports that Kennedy may disband the committee, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon told NPR: “No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS’ mandate to Make America Healthy Again.”
That’s why King and his colleagues are introducing the resolution. “We’re trying to call attention to what’s going on here and put some pressure on the administration to back off,” he says. “If anything, this is an initiative that should be significantly beefed up rather than compromised.”
King worries that if the Task Force’s current processes get disrupted, “we could end up with recommendations for interventions that aren’t proven, that don’t have a scientific and factual basis that could end up costing the system more money.”
While a simple resolution doesn’t carry the force of law, “In this case, it’s still the Senate sending a strong message,” says Dr. Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician and CEO of AcademyHealth, a nonpartisan professional group of health service researchers. “It shows that lawmakers get how crucial the USPSTF is for keeping health decisions grounded in evidence and not partisan.”
U.S. primary care doctors use these guidelines every day, says Dr. Carol Mangione, a primary care doctor and professor at UCLA, who has served as a member and chair of the USPSTF, and she hopes the task force will continue to function as it currently does.
“I hope that Americans continue to get the health dividends from screening for colon cancer, starting a statin if you’re high risk, getting screened for depression if you’re postpartum,” Mangione says. “It would be a loss to not have easily accessible, tailored recommendations for someone’s age, their background risk, to make sure they get to have the best health possible in their lives.”
