The panel that decides which cancer screenings, medications, and preventive care actually work has not met in more than a year. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force normally meets three times a year to weigh the latest evidence, and its recommendations set the standard of care and determine what insurance plans must cover for free for millions of Americans. Under the current HHS secretary, its meetings have now been canceled or blocked four times.
Every delay has a cost. When the task force cannot meet, new evidence on screening for cancer, diabetes, and HIV does not become a recommendation, and the free preventive services tied to those recommendations stall with it. Care that should reach people this year waits indefinitely while the panel sits idle.
This is not a scheduling problem. It is a working scientific body being kept from working. I am asking you to demand that HHS immediately convene the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, protect its independence from political interference, and preserve the requirement that insurers cover its recommended preventive services at no cost to patients.
