Kennedy Names New Preventive Services Task Force Members
- September 18, 2026
- Written by AHLA Legal Staff
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced September 17 appointments of eight new members to the United States Preventive Services Task Force (PSTF), which issues Affordable Care Act (ACA) preventive services coverage recommendations.
One of the new members, Seth J. Corey, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic, will chair the panel.
The other new panelists are Patrick K. Hunter, M.D., M.Sc., a Florida pediatrician; Ronald P. Karlsberg, M.D., a clinical professor of medicine at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Smidt Heart Institute; Venkatesh L. Murthy, M.D., Ph.D., preventive cardiology professor at the University of Michigan; Stephen T. Parente, Ph.D., a health finance professor at the University of Minnesota with expertise in health insurance; Goldie Stands-Over-Bull, M.D., a family medicine physician at Texas Native Health; Louis J. Wilson, M.D., an internist specializing in gastroenterology and managing partner of Wichita Falls Gastroenterology Associates in Texas, and Dennis W. Wulfeck, M.D., M.B.A., D.H.A., a diagnostic radiologist and president of the practice board at RadPartners MBB Radiology.
Kennedy began overhauling the panel after the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Kennedy v. Braidwood Mgmt., Inc., No. 24–316 (U.S. June 27, 2025), which found task force members are “inferior officers” who can be appointed and removed by the HHS Secretary.
“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,” Kennedy said.
“The composition of this new slate represents a significant departure from the Task Force’s traditional membership,” the American Medical Association (AMA) said in a September 17 statement. “We believe maintaining a strong primary care voice must remain central to its work. As the USPSTF moves forward, its recommendations must continue to be based on a transparent, rigorous, independent scientific process and informed by the perspective of physicians who deliver preventive care to patients every day. This is essential for ensuring that task force recommendations are trusted by clinicians and followed by patients.”