Quick Fact: Fox's Johnson falsely claims that Senate health care bill prevents payment for some screenings
While discussing U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on medical screenings, Fox News' Peter Johnson Jr. stated on Fox & Friends that "what we see now in the Senate bill is the Senate saying that if you get an A or a B, then it's gonna be paid for. If you get a C, it's not gonna be paid for." In fact, the bill requires only that insurers provide coverage for screenings that receive A or B recommendations from the task force; it says nothing about whether insurers may or may not cover other categories of recommendations.
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From the November 23 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
JOHNSON: This is a group appointed by the government. And so what we see now in the Senate bill is the Senate saying that if you get an A or a B --
STEVE DOOCY (co-host): Right.
JOHNSON: -- then it's gonna be paid for. If you get a C, it's not gonna be paid for. And so --
DOOCY: Well, you would never know going in if you were gonna wind up with an A, B, or a C.
JOHNSON: Well, they've said it now.
Fact: Senate bill does not prevent insurers from providing coverage for screenings that do not get A or B recommendations
Bill requires insurers to adopt USPSTF recommendations in favor of specific preventive screenings. The Senate health care reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, requires insurance companies to cover screenings that the USPSTF rates as A or B recommendations. It does not prohibit insurers from covering screenings that receive other ratings:
''SEC. 2713. COVERAGE OF PREVENTIVE HEALTH SERVICES.
''(a) IN GENERAL. -- A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall provide coverage for and shall not impose any cost sharing requirements for --
''(1) evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of 'A' or 'B' in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force;
Johnson's claim echoes misinformation in a New York Post column by fellow Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, who cited task force recommendations against regular mammograms for some women to baselessly assert that "under ObamaCare, guidelines will quickly become mandates."
One of the reasons for health coverage reform at the federal level is to produce a minimum acceptable level of coverage, for starters. Additionally, it will end practices such as dropping formerly healthy premium payers who suddenly find themselves in need of expensive treatment, and denying those with a history of medical problems (which is all of us, by the way, since birth is doubtless a pre-existing condition or will be quite soon) any coverage at all.
The language in the reform bills don't require that health insurance companies don't cover some of the C rated recommendations. They simply mandate that they do cover A's and B's.
Personally, I agree with the decisions after looking at the science behind them. More women will be endangered by early mammograms than what will be saved by them. The radiation adds up, and the biopsies are invasive and the worry is not negligible. Even waiting to hear the results of a pap smear after 30 years of perfectly routine and clear pap smears can make a woman nervous - how much more disconcerting is it to have to worry unnecessarily because mammograms can't see into 40 year old's breasts very well and so significant stress is placed upon women who have nothing to worry about.
If the testing didn't have bad side effects, of course we'd want to test everyone for everything. But testing does have bad side effects. Sometimes it's time, sometimes it's medical issues, other times it financial concerns. Having a cone biopsy after a questioning pap smear makes maintaining a pregnancy harder on some women - what's more important to most women - that they take away that one in a million chance that they'll get cervical cancer, or take away their chances to have a baby? Most every woman would choose to have a baby when it's phrased that way, and when we don't talk about the risks, and only highlight the benefits, we do women a disservice.