The federal panel that determines which preventive health services insurers must cover has not convened since March 2025.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Department of Health and Human Services has postponed an upcoming meeting of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, marking the third delay for the federal panel that has not convened in nearly a year.
An HHS spokeswoman confirmed the postponement on March 4, telling The Epoch Times that the meeting scheduled to occur soon would not proceed as planned.
“The task force meeting slated to take place soon has been postponed and will be rescheduled in the coming months,” Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an email to The Epoch Times.
The agency did not provide an explanation for the latest delay.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force was created in 1984 to analyze scientific data on preventive medical care and issue recommendations about screenings, medications and other preventive measures.
The panel’s influence expanded significantly after passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which gave the task force authority to determine which preventive services health insurance plans must cover.
According to federal records, the task force last met in March 2025. Additional meetings were planned for July 2025 and November 2025 but were canceled or postponed amid a federal government shutdown.
The group has also not released its annual report for 2025.
Information posted on the task force website indicates that members are currently developing recommendations covering 14 topics, including screening for autism in young children and medications intended to reduce breast cancer risk. Four additional recommendations are in the final stages of review.
Despite the absence of formal meetings, the panel has continued releasing draft materials and research plans. Since March 2025 it has published roughly a dozen documents, including a draft recommendation examining interventions designed to reduce unhealthy alcohol use.
Federal law states that the health secretary appoints the task force’s 16 members. Participants serve four-year volunteer terms and are required to possess relevant professional expertise while remaining independent and, “to the extent practicable,” free from political pressure.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has not yet appointed any members to the panel.
A spokesperson for HHS previously said in 2025 that officials had not decided whether the task force might be reorganized or restructured. The department has not provided further updates since that time.
Around the same period, the American Medical Association urged Kennedy to keep the existing members in place and to continue the panel’s routine meetings so its work could proceed without disruption.
The structure of the task force was addressed in a Supreme Court ruling issued June 27, 2025, which determined that it is constitutional for the health secretary—rather than the president—to appoint members to the panel.
Kennedy has since reshaped several federal advisory bodies. He removed and replaced members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee, dismissed one member from the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel, and reorganized other federal health panels.
He also replaced members of a federal Alzheimer’s advisory group and appointed new participants to a government autism committee. In response, some scientists formed a separate independent panel that they said would better represent researchers working in the autism field.