Senate GOP supports reported effort to overhaul medical task force

EXCLUSIVE: Three Senate Republicans are backing up Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s possible effort to reform the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, saying that the group has recently been ideologically motivated.

The “independent” task force is used to determine recommendations of what services health insurance companies in the United States have to cover for free, such as checking for cancer.

“Americans deserve to know health guidelines are based on real science, not radical wokeness. The Task Force needs to get back to its mission of giving clear, evidence-based recommendations people can trust,” Sen. Jim Banks, R-Indiana, said in a statement.

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The Wall Street Journal reported that Kennedy is considering removing members of the board, and the senators are saying they back any change to veer away from certain DEI tactics employed by the group currently, including the 2023 Report to Congress on High-Priority Evidence Gaps for Clinical Preventive Services and “social justice activism” by people in the group.

“In particular, the USPSTF departed from its proper activities in its December 2023 Health Equity Framework. The framework criticizes ‘equal access to quality health care for all’ as an inadequate goal of public health and announces that the Task Force will instead use equity as ‘a criterion of the ‘public health importance’ of a topic’ for consideration,” the letter added.

“Far from simply recognizing health disparities between certain populations, ‘health equity’ as described by the USPSTF includes ‘information on risk factors that intersect with race and/or ethnicity or other disadvantaged populations (e.g., sexual and gender minorities) and that affect prevalence and burden of disease’ and ‘any inequities in how preventive services are provided, accessed, or received.’ These criteria would allow the Task Force to issue recommendations outside its proper purview and impose leftwing ideology,” it continues.

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Senator-elect Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, looks on during a photo opportunity as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, welcomes newly-elected Republican senators in his office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on November 12, 2024. (ALLISON ROBBERT/AFP via Getty Images)

Specifically, they said that changes could be needed to fulfill President Donald Trump’s Executive Order to scrap DEI efforts within the federal government, along with an EO on “restoring merit-based opportunity” and “ending illegal discrimination.”

“Allowing the Task Force to pursue the Health Equity Framework means allowing it to exceed its statutory mission and target social groups that comport with a progressive agenda. It means discounting universally beneficial recommendations as inadequate. It means disregarding statutory limits and instead undertaking a social justice crusade through the lens of critical race theory and gender ideology. This would be a mistake. The result is ineffectiveness, discrimination, and division. The USPSTF should be working for all Americans equally,” the letter added.

“No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS’ mandate to Make America Healthy Again,” an HHS spokesperson told Digital in a statement when asked about the WSJ report. 

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Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) arrives for a Senate Judiciary committee business meeting at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on February 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C.. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

There has already been some opposition to the possibility of removing the members, including from the American Medical Association.

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“USPSTF plays a critical, non-partisan role in guiding physicians’ efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services,” the AMA wrote in a letter to Kennedy. “As such, we urge you to retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can continue without interruption.”