HHS postponed USPSTF meeting for fourth time since July 2025 amid plan to dismiss all 16 members

On July 6, 2026, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s office confirmed it had postponed the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's meeting scheduled for July 10, 2026, giving the panel no reason and no rescheduled date. It was the fourth time Kennedy's office has postponed a USPSTF meeting since July 2025 -- the panel has not met in person since March 2025 -- and it follows Wall Street Journal reporting that Kennedy plans to dismiss all 16 sitting members as insufficiently aligned with his views.

The Task Force is the independent, congressionally chartered body whose recommendations determine which preventive services -- cancer screenings, HIV-prevention drugs, and other tests -- insurers must cover under the Affordable Care Act. In May 2026, Kennedy fired the panel's two chairs without filling the vacant seats left by other members whose terms had already expired, and in June 2025 the Supreme Court ruled that Kennedy has the unilateral authority to remove Task Force members and override its recommendations. The postponement is the latest in a pattern that began with Kennedy's 2025 dismissal of all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and public health groups including AcademyHealth have urged Congress to protect the Task Force's independence from political interference.

Updates

2026-07-07 — USPSTF meeting rescheduled to late August, selection process criticized [4, 5]

HHS confirmed the postponed meeting has been rescheduled to late August 2026. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Director Roger Klein, a political appointee, is leading selection of up to eight new members without input from the ousted vice chairs and is favoring medical specialists over the primary-care generalists who traditionally staffed the panel. HHS did not say when the new members would be named.