Health lobbyists focus on a once-obscure group

For years, an obscure federal task force sifted through medical literature on colonoscopies, prostate-cancer screening and fluoride treatments, ferreting out the best evidence for doctors to use in caring for their patients. But now its recommendations have financial implications, raising the stakes for patients, doctors and others in the health-care industry.

Under the new health-care overhaul law, health insurers will be required to pay fully for services that get an A or B recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a volunteer group made up of primary care and public health experts.

That's good news for patients, who will no longer face cost sharing for these services, but it puts the group in the cross hairs of lobbyists and disease advocates eager to see their top priorities -- routine screening for Alzheimer's disease, diabetes or HIV, for example -- become covered services.

"It's a wide-open door for lobbying," says Robert Laszewski, a health insurance industry consultant.