House Holds Hearing on USPSTF; Legislation Floated; UNIQUE TRANSCRIPT HERE

The Affordable Care Act requires US health plans to cover, without a copay, services endorsed by the United States Preventive Services Task Force.   In addition, CMS can adopt any or all such endorsed services if it runs an NCD process that finds the service is reasonable and necessary for prevention in Medicare populations.

This has led to instances of confusion (USPSTF recommendations sometimes be cryptic to implement as specific insurance rules and policies.)  This fall, New England Journal ran an opinion piece on the USPSTF-and-payers topic (Johns & Bayer, November 3, 2016, here.)

Possibly lost in the post election explosion of health and political news, on November 30, the House held a hearing on how well the USPSTF preventive services benefit is working, or not working.

NEW: 

• Unofficial Transcript Based on Youtube Webcast: here.
• 28pp, 14,000 words
• Single Zip File with Agenda, Witness Testimony Files, Transcript, Draft Bill, here.
• Above documents in one single PDF, here.
• 155 pp.

• New items at THE HILL, here.
• House Energy & Commerce press release, here.
• November 30 Hearing Website, with streaming video and linked testimony documents, here.
• Home page for the USPSTF Transparency and Accountability Act (proposed; Blackburn and Rush; 2015), H.R. 1151, here.
• An updated draft of the legislation is here.