The US Preventive Services Task Force in Legal Jeopardy

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2024

ISSN

0098-7484

Publisher

JAMA Network

Language

en-US

Abstract

For 40 years, as a guide for physicians and the general public, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has reviewed the scientific evidence and issued critical recommendations on preventive health measures, including screening for cancers of the cervix, colorectum, and breast.1 In 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which included a provision (Section 2713) that preventive health recommendations issued by the USPSTF and assigned an A or B rating (the highest ratings, indicating the strongest evidence in support) must be covered by most private health insurers without cost-sharing.2 The same coverage mandate applied to vaccination recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and preventive health measures recommended by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The ACA provided that the USPSTF and its recommendations “…shall be independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.”

In 2020, after a long string of legal challenges to the ACA, a group of plaintiffs, comprising 2 businesses and 6 individuals, filed a new lawsuit in a Texas-based federal court, claiming that the ACA preventive services coverage requirement was unconstitutional under a range of 5 legal theories.4 In the case, known as Braidwood Management Inc v Becerra, the plaintiffs argued that members of the USPSTF, ACIP, and HRSA were acting as officers of the United States, yet they had not been appointed in accordance with the Appointments Clause of Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution.

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