Why one IOM committee member dissented on women's health report

The Institute of Medicine's much-anticipated recommendations for which women's health services should be covered by health plans without co-pays or deductibles came out yesterday. Among the eight services it recommends insurers cover at no extra charge -- HHS will make the final decision -- are all forms of approved contraception, breastfeeding support and breast-pump rentals and domestic-violence screening. One member of the committee charged with coming up with the recommendations, however, had several issues with how the report was developed -- so much so that he filed a dissent rather than endorsing the report. You can read the dissent by economist Anthony Lo Sasso, a professor and senior research scientist in the division of health policy and administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago's School of Public Health, on p. 207 of the report. He thinks the time frame provided for coming up with recommendations was too short -- "barely six months" from the time the group came together to when the final report was submitted."