The heat on the recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has brought Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius into the fray with a statement issued today.
She makes this point about the task force: “They do not set federal policy and they don’t determine what services are covered by the federal government.”
That’s true, but she omits the fact that she works for a president who endorsed the House-passed health-reform bill which would make the task force’s recommendations the standards that the federal government would enforce. (See Section 222 of the House-passed bill, “Essential Benefits Package Defined.”)
I wonder if Secretary Sebelius would also be surprised to find out that her department pays for the task force’s work.
– Hanns Kuttner is a visiting fellow at Hudson Institute.