On September 17, 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services announced eight new members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the 16-member panel whose A and B grades legally obligate insurers to cover preventive services at no cost to patients under the Affordable Care Act.
Kennedy had left the panel idle for more than a year, canceling meetings, declining to fill expiring seats, and in May 2026 firing its two top leaders, who would ordinarily have vetted new members. The selection was run instead by the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a political appointee.
Five of the eight new members are specialists rather than primary-care generalists, which reverses a long-standing practice meant to keep specialty interests from shaping which screenings the country pays for. One appointee holds no medical degree; he is a health-finance professor whose earlier nomination to an HHS post was withdrawn over financial-conflict concerns.
Kennedy framed it as a strengthening. “Prevention is one of our most powerful tools for confronting chronic disease,” he said in the announcement. “The Preventive Services Task Force's recommendations influence preventive care across America, and Americans deserve recommendations grounded in rigorous, objective science. We are strengthening the Task Force to ensure it asks hard questions, follows the evidence wherever it leads, and maintains the highest standards of scientific integrity.” He had told a House committee in April that the panel “has been lackadaisical. It's not been doing its job.”
One detail comes from the department's own release rather than from any critic: it credits one appointee with “four years of experience,” where the others are credited with 14 to 48.
The American Medical Association called the slate “a significant departure from the Task Force's traditional membership.” Its president said the panel's “credibility has been built on a membership grounded in prevention and primary care, the physicians who routinely deliver preventive services and understand how recommendations translate into clinical practice.”
The conflict-of-interest disclosure policy has been taken off the task force's website, which says it is being updated. AcademyHealth asked for the process to be shown: “The public should be able to see how the new members were chosen and vetted. The Task Force has established procedures for disclosing and managing conflicts of interest. Those disclosures, and the process used to evaluate them, should be public.” It also noted that a panel cannot grade evidence that no longer exists, after the agency lost staff and canceled more than 150 research grants: “The best-qualified panel in the world still needs rigorous, current evidence to evaluate. Without it, there's nothing to grade.”
Former members say the department has blocked the panel from starting new topics and has held back four completed guidelines, including updated cervical cancer screening recommendations. A New York Times FOIA suit for the nomination and selection materials has been pending since August; HHS has not produced them.
Appointing task force members is within the secretary's authority. What is at issue is the composition, the vetting nobody can see, and the missing conflict policy.