For our US-based readers … It appears that Rep. Kucinich’s statements on his web site (reported on this web site a few days ago) are something of a political simplification of reality.
On December 9, 2011, Secretary Sebelius sent this letter to Rep. Kucinich and his colleagues. The letter contains the following statement (in specific reference to the PSA test):
I do not intend to eliminate coverage of this screening test under Medicare at this time.
The claim on Rep. Kucinich’s web site, posted late last week, appears to be a significant overstatement of this quotation; the statement from Sec, Sebelius is consistent with several other statements made by her related to this matter, and apparently she has issued no other statement on this matter since sending that letter.
Obvioulsy this statement leaves the door wide open with regard to what she might feel the need to do at some (any) point in the future.
We can apparently all return to the state we were in prior to Rep. Kucinich’s hyper-inflated claim that Sec. Sebelius was going to overturn the USPSTF’s draft recommendation … at least until we hear what the final recommendation turns out to be.
Filed under: Diagnosis, Risk Tagged: | PSA, recommendation, screening, USPSTF
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ongoing trials on the
CTAG PCa web site
At least for now Secretary Sebelius is continuing Medicare coverage for screening.