Floor Conversation: Murkowski Introduces Amendment to Keep Government Out of Helath Care Coverage Decisions
Sen. Murkowski, in a conversation with Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, discusses her amendment that would ensure patients receive doctor recommendations for what preventive health services their health insurance plan should cover without interference from government appointed advisers.
Sen. Murkowski: Mr. President, there has been a great deal of discussion this week certainly, and last week, with the announcement from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the USPSTF, of their recommendations as they relate to mammograms and recommendation that women under the age of 50 do not need to be screened until they reach age 50, and then on attaining the age 50, every other year after that.
When these recommendations came out on November 16, it is fair to say they generated a level of controversy, a level of discussion and a level of confusion around the country by women from all walks of life. For many years now, women have operated under what we knew to be the standards, the protocols. If you had a history of breast cancer in your family, you took certain steps earlier, but the general recommendation was out there. Certainly, the guidelines we had been following, the assurances we were seeking as women were that we would be encouraged to engage in these screenings on an annual basis. They gave us all a level of confidence. When these new recommendations, these new guidelines came out just a couple weeks ago, I do think the level of confusion, the level of anxiety that was raised because of this announcement brought a focus to some of what we are talking about when we discuss health care reforms and should the government be involved in our health care.
I know I have received e-mails from friends, from relatives, girlfriends I haven't heard from in a while, talking with women, generally, about what do they think about this. I would hear story after story of the woman who discovered, at age 39, a lump, something that was off, something that was not right, and then the stories subsequent to that, the steps she took as an individual with her doctor. Again, the announcement that we now have these guidelines that this preventative screening task force has put in place and everything we thought we knew and understood about what we should be doing with our health has been unsettled brings us to the discussion today.
We have an amendment offered by the Senator from Maryland. I would like to offer a little bit later an amendment, but I would like to speak to the amendment now, if I may. I am proposing this as a side-by-side to the Mikulski amendment. This is designed to allow for an openness, a transparency on preventative services, not just mammograms. I don't want to limit it to only mammograms, because we know that preventive services in so many other aspects of our health are also equally key and also equally important. What I am looking to do with my amendment is to rely on the expertise, not of a government-appointed task force but to rely on the expertise of medical organizations and the experts, whether they are within the college of OB/GYNs or surgeons or oncologists, rely on them and their expertise to determine what services, what preventive services should be covered.
What we are seeking to do is allow for a level of information so an individual can select insurance coverage based on recommendations by these major professional medical organizations on preventative health services, whether it is mammography or for cervical cancer screening.
I think we learned from the announcement from the USPSTF, the Preventive Services Task Force, that when we have government engaging in the decisions as to our health care and what role they actually play, there is a great deal of concern and consternation. I have heard from many colleagues on both sides of the aisle: That task force was wrong. We think they have made a mistake in their recommendations.
What we are intending to do with this amendment is keep the government out of health care decisionmaking and allow the spotlight to be shown on the level of prevention coverage that patients will get under their health care plan, rather than relying on unelected individuals, basically individuals who are appointed by an administration to serve as part of this panel of 16, on the Preventive Services Task Force. My amendment specifies that all health plans must consult the recommendations and the guidelines of the professional medical organizations in determining what prevention benefits should be covered by all health insurance plans.
I know at least those of us who are on the Federal employees health benefits have an opportunity to subscribe to the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan. This is their booklet that is out for 2010. This is under their standard basic option plan. Turn to preventive care for adults that is covered. They provide, under this particular plan, for cancer diagnostic tests and screening procedures for colorectal cancer tests, for prostate cancer, cervical cancer, mammograms, ultrasound, abdominal aneurysm. There is a list we can look to.
What we don't see laid out in this booklet or any of the other pamphlets that outline given plans out there is, OK, for instance, the breast cancer test, is there an age restriction. I am told under Blue Cross there is not. But it doesn't indicate that there. What do the experts recommend? It is not clear from what we receive. So what my amendment would do, in part, is to allow for this information to be directly made available to patients, to individuals who are looking at the plans, to make a determination as to what they will select.
If you go to the Web sites of these professional medical organizations, for instance, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, they recommend that cervical cancer screening should begin at age 21 years, regardless of sexual history. Cervical cytology screening is recommended every 2 years for women between the ages of 21 and 29. The American Society of Clinical Oncology, as to the recommendations for mammography, urges all women beginning at age 40 to speak with their doctors about mammography, to understand the benefits and potential risks. By age 50, at the latest, they should be receiving mammograms. The American College of Surgeons, in their recommendations, recommend that women get a mammogram every year starting at age 40.
As an individual who is looking to make a determination as to what the experts are saying out there, what is being recommended, I would like to know that this information is made available to me to help me make these decisions. What our amendment would require is the plans would be required to provide this information directly to the individuals through the publications they produce on an annual basis. What we are talking about now is the doctors. It is the specialists who will be recommending what preventative services to cover, not those of us here in Washington, DC, in Congress, not the Secretary of Health and Social Services, who may or may not be a doctor or a medical professional, not a task force that has been appointed by an administration. We are trying to take the politics out of this and put it on the backs of the medical professionals who know and understand this. This is where I think we want to be putting the emphasis. This is where we want to be relying on the professionals, not the political folks.
Additionally, my amendment ensures that the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall not use any recommendations made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to deny coverage of any items or services. This is the crux of so much of what we are discussing right now with these latest recommendations that came out by USPSTF. The big concern by both Republicans and Democrats and everyone is the insurance companies are going to be using these recommendations now to deny coverage to women under 50 or to a woman who is over 50, if she wants to have a mammogram every year; that she would only be allowed coverage for those mammograms every other year rather than on an annual basis. We want to take that away from the auspices, if you will, of the government. To suggest that we will deny coverage based on the recommendations of this government task force is not something I think most of us in this country are comfortable with.
We specify very clearly that the Secretary cannot use any recommendations from the USPSTF to deny coverage of any items or services. We also include in the amendment broad protections to prevent, again, the bureaucrats, the government folks at the Department of Health and Human Services, from denying care to patients based on the use of comparative effectiveness research.
Finally, we include a provision that ensures that the Secretary of Health and Human Services may not define or classify abortion or abortion services as preventative care or as preventative services.
This amendment is relatively straightforward. It relies, essentially, on the recommendation of practicing doctors, as opposed to the bureaucrats, to the politicians, to those in office. My amendment addresses the concern that the government will make coverage determinations for your health care decisions. What we are doing here, quite simply, is making it transparent, making clear that the preventive services recommended by the professional medical organizations are visible, are transparent. We require the insurance companies to disclose that information that is recommended and, again, recommended by the professionals.
This is a good compromise. It basically keeps the government out, and it keeps the doctors in. It requires the insurance companies to disclose the information to potential enrollees and allows for, again, a transparency that, to this point in time, has been lacking.
It has been suggested by at least one other Member on the floor earlier that my amendment would cost somewhere in the range of $30 billion. I would like to note for the record, we have not yet received a score on this. We fully believe it will be much less than has been suggested. When the statement was made, it was not with a full view of the amendment we have before us and is not consistent with that. I did wish to acknowledge that as we begin the discussion on my amendment.
Senator Enzi, R-Wyoming: Mr. President, first, I wish to thank the Senator from Alaska for the tremendous work she has done on this issue and for the dozens of people she has talked to over the last couple days to try to come up with an amendment that would actually solve the problem everybody has been talking about.
I appreciate the Senator from Maryland recognizing this major flaw in the bill, and it is in the bill. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is in the bill. That is exactly the group that specified this new policy on mammograms that has upset people all across the country. It upset everybody so much that we have an amendment on the floor by the Senator from Maryland reacting to that and reacting to the fact that it is in the bill at the current time.
So I appreciate the Senator from Alaska coming up with a plan that actually is more comprehensive than the amendment from the Senator from Maryland because the Senator has had a little bit longer to work on it. I appreciate the words the Senator has in there that ''you cannot deny.'' The Senator is on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee with me, and I know we have worked on this issue in committee. I hoped this kind of a realization would have been made at that time. We had some amendments where you could not deny based on this or the comparative effectiveness or could not prohibit based on it. We know all those amendments failed, meaning there was probably some intention to deny or to prohibit based on these groups.
So I appreciate the Senator bringing up the fact that it is the caregivers who will have some say in this so Washington cannot come between you and your doctor. I wish the Senator would go into a little bit of some of her background from Alaska because the Senator and Alaska have been very involved in breast cancer for a long time, and people ought to be aware of the kind of services that are available out there and what the costs of those services are.
Sen. Murkowski: I appreciate the question from my colleague from Wyoming. The Senator knows, coming from a rural State, that our health care costs are typically higher, and it is not just an issue of cost, but it is an issue of access, and particularly in my State, where most of our communities are not connected by roads, it is very difficult to gain access to a provider. It is even more difficult to gain access, for instance, to mammography units.
I have been involved in this issue, in terms of women's health and cancer screening, for many decades now, primarily because my mother got started in it back when I was still in high school and saw a need to provide for breast cancer screening for women in rural areas, where they could not afford to fly into town, as we would call it, for the screenings. So she engaged in an effort--and continues to this day--to raise money for not only mobile mammography units but to figure out how we move those units from village to village.
Essentially, what they have been able to do, over the years, is you put that mobile mammography unit on the back of a barge and you take it up and down the river and you stop in every village and offer free screenings for women. You fly it into a village, where you are not on a river. We have been making this effort, again, for decades, working, chipping away slowly at the issue of breast cancer. We recognize it in our State. Particularly with our Alaska Native populations, we see higher levels of breast cancer than we would like. We are trying to reduce that.
But when these recommendations came out several weeks ago from the USPSTF, I will tell you, there was a buzz around my State amongst women about: Well, now what do I do? Where do I go? Do I need to go in for my screening? What should I do?
There is an article that was actually in the news just, I guess, a couple weeks ago, and it cites a comment from a doctor. Her comment was, the new recommendations were confusing patients who usually come in for their annual screenings. She said: My schedulers have called to schedule patients to come in for their followup mammogram, and they have been told: Well, I don't have to do that now. This government group says I don't have to do that.
Mr. President and my colleague from Wyoming, maybe some do not. But what about those who are at risk? These are the ones whom I think we are continuing to hear from who say: Please, add some clarity to this.
Senator Enzi: Mr. President, I know there is not any word that probably turns a family upside down as much as the word ''cancer,'' and it does not matter which form of cancer it is. It is just drastic because we do not know all the implications of it. Maybe someday we will. Maybe someday we will know how people get it, and we will be able to cure it with a vaccine. But, so far, what we have are some mechanisms for putting it into remission.
One of the reasons I know how upsetting that is and how it turns the world upside down is, 3 1/2 , 3 3/4 years ago my wife was diagnosed with colon cancer. She had screenings, but she listened to her body. She said: Something is the matter here. She kept going to doctors. So even if they do not recommend the screenings, if your body is saying something is the matter, pursue it until you are either convinced nothing is the matter or a doctor finds what is the matter. That is the advice she gives to everybody. These are things that need to be between the patient and the doctor.
Now that she is in remission, one of the things the doctor recommended was that she take Celebrex. That is something normally for arthritic pain, but what they found was in some patients that will keep polyps from growing that will turn into cancer in the colon, and we definitely do not want that to recur again. So she is taking that. But it is a constant fight with making sure that is an approved medication and that it can be done and that it will be paid for.
If that were just a task force recommendation--first of all, since she had the screening, they would say she does not have a problem and, later, she would die from it. But she was able to listen to her body, get the treatment she needed, and now is continuing to get the treatment without a task force saying: No, 99 percent of the people do not need that. Her doctor and she are able to determine what she needs.
On other screenings, once you have cancer, there are other times you need to have MRIs, other kinds of tests run. That, again, has to be up to the doctor and the patient to determine how often those are needed. Again, I know from talking to a number of people whom I know--not just ladies either--who have had cancer, once you have had cancer and you are in remission, you would actually prefer to have your screening a little bit earlier for the mental reassurance you get with it.
Again, from talking to people--and we have talked to more now because we are trying to give some reassurances to them when this terrible word comes up--when they go to the doctor, one of the first things that happens is they weigh in, they take your blood pressure. When you are waiting for a decision on how the blood test you got turned out or the MRI you got turned out or whatever it was, that blood pressure goes through the roof. Quite frequently, you cannot leave the doctor's office until you have--you went there for the information, so, of course, you stay for the information, but they will not let you leave until they do the blood pressure test again, to make sure it goes down below the critical stage. That is how much impact this has on people.
So I am glad the Senator did something that goes a little bit further, covers a few more things, and makes sure people have access to their doctor, to the tests they need, and not to be relying on some government bureaucracy to say: Well, in 99 percent of the cases or 85 percent of the cases--who knows how far down they will take it, depending on what the costs are. We do not want that to happen.
I think the Senator's amendment allows patients to get these preventive benefits and stops government bureaucrats and outside experts from ever blocking patients' access to those types of services.
I appreciate the Senator from Maryland who put up an amendment. I do not think it meets that standard. They still rely on government experts called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to decide what preventive benefits should be covered under private health insurance. This is the same Preventive Services Task Force that made this decision that women under the age of 50 should not receive annual mammograms.
In fact, I think I even remember in there that they were not necessarily recommending self-examination. Most people I know who are very young discovered it with self-examination. I certainly would not want them to quit doing that because there is a recommendation from somebody who does not understand them or their body.
Patients do want to receive preventive screenings. Sometimes they are a little reluctant to do it because nobody wants the possibility of hearing that word given to them.
Americans should be able to get screened for high blood pressure and diabetes when a doctor recommends they get these tests. I think the Senator and I agree they should be able to get colonoscopies, prostate exams, and mammograms, so they can prevent deadly cancers from progressing to the point where they are no longer curable. Many of these diseases are preventable or curable or can be put into remission if they are discovered early enough.
I think we agree with Senator Mikulski's goal that all Americans should be able to get preventive benefits, but we disagree that her amendment achieves that stated goal. Her amendment does not ensure access to mammograms for women who are under the age of 50. Part of that I am taking from an Associated Press article.
As most Americans know, last month the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force revised the recommendations for screening for breast cancer, advising women between the ages of 40 and 49 against receiving routine mammograms and women ages 50 and over to receive a mammogram just once every 2 years. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered its grade for these screenings to a C.
That sparked the political firestorm, as many women became confused about what services they could get and when they could get them. The health care bills before Congress further confused the issue because they rely heavily on the recommendations of the task force. That is what is in the bill. The underlying Reid bill says--and the Mikulski amendment restates--that all health plans must cover preventive services that receive an A or B grade from the task force. Let's see, we just said that was a C grade.
Because breast cancer screenings for women under the age of 50 are no longer classified by the task force as an A or B, plans would not have to cover those services. So Senator Mikulski drafted an amendment to try to fix this problem, but I think it confuses the matter some more.
I say to the Senator, I appreciate the effort you have gone to, to try to clarify that and expand it to some other areas--and to not add another layer of bureaucracy--by saying that all services and screenings must be covered by health plans.
However, the previous amendment does not have any guidelines that are specifically for women or prevention.
Sen. Murkowski: If I may comment on the Senator's last statement, this is very important for people to understand. There has been much said about the Mikulski amendment and what it does or does not do. But it is very important for women to understand the Mikulski amendment will not provide for those mammograms for women who are younger than age 50. Her amendment specifically provides that it is ''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.''
So you go to the task force report, and as the Senator has noted, women who fall between the ages of 40 and 49 receive a grade of a C, and the recommendation is, specifically: Do not screen routinely. Individualized decision to begin biannual screening, according to the patient's context and values. But they have received a C designation by USPSTF.
According to the Mikulski amendment, those women who are younger than 50 years of age will not be eligible or will not be covered under the mandatory screening requirement she has set forth in her amendment.
I think where she was trying to go was to ensure that these recommendations would not be used to deny coverage. She adds a paragraph stating that nothing shall preclude health plans from covering additional services recommended by the task force that are either not an A or a B recommendation. But the amendment does not require plans to cover services that are not an A or a B. In other words, if you are 45 years of age, you are in this C category, and the amendment does not require, then, that your preventive screening services be covered.
So for those women who are in this age group-Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz just went through a recent bout of cancer, and I think that was diagnosed at age 41. For those women who fall into this category, this amendment the Senator from Maryland has introduced does not address the concerns that have been raised by these recommendations coming out of this preventive task force. Again, I think we need to understand that what this amendment specifically allows for is first-dollar coverage for immunizations for children, children's health services as outlined with the HRSA--Human Resources Services Administration--guideline. But, in fact, the requirement to provide for screening coverage for women who are not in this A or B category--in other words, anybody younger than 50--we need to understand is not covered through this.
Our amendment, through allowing for a level of transparency, ensures that when you go to obtain your insurance, you can see very clearly what the professional medical organizations recommended are the guidelines and then what your insurer is proposing to offer you for your coverage. If it is not coverage you like, then shop around. This is what this insurance exchange is supposed to be all about.
Sen. Enzi: Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Alaska also.
Isn't it true that the Senator's amendment ensures that the Secretary of Health and Human Services won't be able to deny any of these services based on any recommendation? That is one of the things we have been concerned about. Again, that is an unelected bureaucrat who could come between you and your doctor and your health care. I know the Senator has covered that in her amendment, too, and I do appreciate it.
Sen. Murkowski: It states very clearly on the second page that the Secretary shall not use any recommendation made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to deny coverage and items serviced by a group health plan or a health insurance issuer. So, yes, we make it very clear that these recommendations from the USPSTF cannot be used to deny coverage.
I think the opportunity to have medical professionals, as this USPSTF is comprised of--we should have an entity that is kind of looking out and seeing what best practices are. But then that entity should not be the one that causes a determination as to whether coverage is going to be offered. You can use that as a resource, most certainly, just as we use as a resource the recommendation from, say, for instance, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Surgeons, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, but it is not going to be the determining factor. I think that is where we need to make that separation, where my amendment separates from Senator Mikulski's.
Sen. Enzi: Mr. President, I also appreciate that the Senator from Alaska makes sure they can't deny care based on comparative effectiveness research, which actually was part of the stimulus bill that was run through at that point in time, and finally that the Senator's amendment includes a commonsense provision that would prohibit the Secretary from ever determining that abortion is a preventive service.
So I hope all of my colleagues, whether they are pro-life or pro-choice, would support this change to ensure that the controversial issues don't sidetrack the debate on the preventive issues because what we are talking about is the preventive issues, and I appreciate the Senator covering that.
Sen. Murkowski: I am glad the Senator mentioned the issue of the abortion services. I think there is a vagueness in the amendment Senator Mikulski has offered. Some have suggested that it would allow those in the Human Resources Services Administration, HRSA, to define abortions as a preventive test, which could provide that health insurance plans then be mandated to cover it. That has generated some concern, obviously. Some have opposed the amendment, saying that if Congress were to grant any executive branch entity sweeping authority to define services that private plans must then cover, merely by declaring a given service to constitute preventive care, then that authority could be employed in the future to require all health plans to cover abortions.
So all we are doing with my amendment is just making very clear there are no vagaries, there is no second-guessing. It just makes very clear that the Secretary cannot make that determination that preventive services are to include abortion services.
Sen. Enzi: Mr. President, as I said before, my wife says that she had probably never mentioned the word ''colon'' twice in her whole life, and since then she has become an encyclopedia for people who have a very similar problem. She had a colonoscopy a short time before. She was still having problems, and they had said there is no problem, but she kept getting it checked until she found that there was a problem. So people need to listen to their bodies, and they need to listen to their doctors, and they shouldn't have a bureaucrat coming in between that. So I thank the Senator.
Sen. Murkowski: I thank the Senator for the dialog here today. I think this is an important part of our discussion as we debate health care reform on the floor. We have had good conversations already yesterday and today about the cuts to Medicare, the impact we will feel as a nation if these substantive cuts advance. But I think this discussion--and we are narrowing it so much on what the recommendations have been from this task force, but I think it is a good preview of what the American people can expect if we move in the direction of government-run health care, of bureaucrats, whether it is the Secretary of Health and Human Services or whether it is task forces that have been appointed by those in the administration, who are then able to make that determination as to what is best for you and your health care and your family's health care.
I think the discussion we have had today about ensuring that it is not best left to these entities, these appointed entities to make these determinations, but let's leave it to--or let's allow the information to come to us from the medical professionals. Senator Coburn has spoken so eloquently on the floor about relying on those who really know and understand, who live this and who practice this, rather than us as politicians who want to be doctors. I don't want to be a doctor. I want to be able to rely on the good judgment of a provider I trust, and I want him or her to be able to make those decisions based on their understanding of me and my health care needs and what is best for me and what the best practices are that are out there, rather than having a task force telling them: That is the protocol for Lisa. She is 52. She is able to get a mammogram every other year now. I want to know that it is me and my doctor who are making these decisions.
I hope Members will take a look at the amendment I will offer and consider how it allows for truly that kind of openness, that kind of transparency, and gives individuals the freedom of choice in their health care that I think we all want.
With that, I thank my colleague from Wyoming, and I yield the floor.
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