ObamaCare’s Version of Cookbook Medicine
Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans…
[S]ervices rated “A” or “B”—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get “Cs” and “Ds”—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely…
Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don’t get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren’t mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.
The task force … advice is often out of sync with conventional medical practice. For example, it recommended against wider screening for HIV long after such screening was accepted practice. As a result, many of its verdicts are widely ignored by practicing doctors.
The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.
Entire Scott Gottlieb Wall Street Journal editorial worth reading.
This is the way that Obamacare will “fix” the primary care shortage. As long as anyone- NP,EMTs, RNs, LPNs follow the cookbook nothing can go wrong. Maybe all patients can follow the cookbook on their iPad and fix themselves. Maybe a do it yourself appendectomy on your kitchen table.
This monster, Obamacare, is just beginning.
Each time cookbook medicine is proposed there is no discussion of accompanying liability reform.
What if the patient does not follow the book? What if the “old ways” are dropped and there are bad outcomes?
I am so glad I retired.
“The task force’s problems are compounded by the fact that it is deliberately exempted from the rules that govern other government advisory boards and regulatory agencies……”
That is especially worrisome.
Wow. This is scary.
By mandating all medical screenings and interventions that meet a certain criteria, the process will become political. Special interest lobbyists will also try to influence which services are on the list of mandated items. It’s really better to let people pay out of pocket for those services they want. The cost for many of these covered services will become cost prohibitive once insurers are required to cover them. There’s an old saying… “if you think the cost is high now, just wait until it’s free.