TENNESSEAN EDITORIAL URGES REVISION OF HOUSE DEMOCRATS’ LEGISLATION

Last week the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services became the center of controversy after issuing new guidelines on mammograms suggesting women start getting the routine procedure at age 50 instead of 40. Since the release of the report, the task force has faced significant backlash from across the country. Just today, Gallup released a new poll showing that 75 percent of women ages 35-75 disagree with the new recommendations and 84 percent of those ages 35-49 plan to ignore the recommendations.

While the task force’s recommendations should give women pause, Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn has put the spotlight on a disturbing portion of House Democrats’ health care legislation relating to the task force’s study. From her official website:

That’s right. Democrats have set the stage for health care rationing and the release of this latest report proves that it will happen with mammograms under Speaker Pelosi’s government takeover of health care. Rep. Blackburn uses a four-step model to demonstrate exactly how Democrats’ plan will begin rationing mammograms. From her official website:

STEP 1: Provider Networks And Essential Benefits

Lets start with the full text of H.R. 3962 as finally passed by the House this month. Page 106 of the bill, starting at line 7, sets forth guidelines that all health insurance plans and the public option must comply with. Page 107 goes on to define these plans as “provider networks.”

Jumping a few pages ahead, to page 110, we see on line 3 that the bill lays out precisely what essential health care benefits must be in these approved plans. Those services begin to be outlined on page 111, line 8 . Service 8 (number “8″ on line 1 of page 112) says that “preventive services, including those services with a grade of A or B by the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services” must be covered.

STEP 2: The Task Force

Who is this Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services? Well, their authority begins to be laid out in Section 2301 of the bill, starting at line 18 of page 1296. Their specific authority begins to be spelled out on page 1301 at line 15. The bill says that The Task Force will identify clinical preventive services for review.” The Task Force will “review the scientific evidence related to the benefits, effectiveness, appropriateness, and costs of clinical preventive services.” (page 1302 lines 1-3) The Task Force will then, “determine whether subsidies and rewards meet The Task Force’s standards for a grade of A or B.” (page 1302 lines 14-16)

STEP 3: Services Graded And Provided

On page 1317 at line 21 the bill reiterates that the Secretary of Health and Human Services must include those A and B graded services among essential benefits that all health care plans must include.

Here is where we have to inject a little common sense into H.R. 3962. The bill mandates that all Americans must be able to purchase plans in the exchange and be provided these essential benefits; in this case, preventative care ranked with a grade of A or B. This will be enormously expensive for private plans and for the Federal Government under the pubic option since everyone must be covered.

Because there is no mandate or incentive in the bill to provide coverage for services graded as C or below, it is reasonable to conclude that costs will keep health care plans from providing these services.

Going back to the text of H.R. 3962; on page 1329, line 21 the bill goes into more detail about the Task Force’s recommendations. It says “all recommendations of the Preventive Services Task Force [the panel that issued this week's mammogram recommendation]… as in existence on the day before the date of the enactment of this Act shall be considered to be recommendations of the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services…" It goes on to say, and I find this remarkable, that the Preventive Services Task Force automatically becomes the Task Force on Clinical Preventive Services.

STEP 4: What This Means For Mammograms

The very mammogram study that we heard so much about this week, the one conducted by the Preventive Services Task Force, will automatically be the guideline for determining what grade mammograms for women under 50 receive. As you can see here the study recommended a grade of “C” for that service. This all means that getting a mammogram under the age of 50 is not considered an “essential benefit” and will not be covered under the new health care regime.

Rep. Blackburn’s analysis of the legislation demonstrates that Democrats’ government takeover of health care will lead to rationing and with the new task force’s report, mammograms will be on the list of services not to be covered. Americans have every right to be concerned and Tennesseans are right to be outraged that Democrat Reps. Jim Cooper and Steve Cohen both put their support behind a bill that will ration health care services such as mammograms. Even an editorial in today’s Tennessean says that the preventive service language in House Democrats’ health care bill should be revised:

House Democrats continue to celebrate their so-called “victory” in the health care debate since ramming through their government takeover of health care earlier this month. Unfortunately, Democrats’ “victory” translates into nothing more than a major defeat for the American people who were looking to their elected leaders for real health care reform.