CHRISTOPHER E ZIMMER
theFeed
Unjust Actions
DHHS
Amid pandemic, Trump administration focused on revoking transgender health care protections. By John Riley
T
HE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS POISED TO ISSUE a rewrite of a section of the Affordable Care Act that protected LGBTQ individuals from insurance discrimination. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is close to finalizing its proposed rewrite of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which, under the Obama administration, was interpreted to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals, whom LGBTQ advocates and health care experts say were being turned away when seeking care. The provision also extended protections available to women who had undergone abortions. Religious organizations and conservative interest groups objected to the Obama-era rule, arguing it violated their religious liberty. Several sued in court, resulting in a federal judge in Texas blocking those protections from being enforced in 2016, and overturning the provision entirely in 2019 by finding the section overly burdened the religious beliefs of Christian medical providers. Last Thursday, the final rule was circulated at the U.S. Department of Justice, a step toward publicly releasing the reg-
ulation in the coming days, two sources with knowledge of the rule told Politico. The Trump administration — and notably, Roger Severino, the head of HHS’s Office for Civil Rights — has long objected to the Obama-era interpretation of the statute, and has been working for the last few years to rewrite Section 1557. Under the proposed rewrite, a version of which was made public last year, language would be added to explicitly state that the ACA’s prohibitions on sex-based discrimination only pertain to instances where someone is discriminated against because of their assigned sex at birth. As part of that revision, HHS also proposed changes that sought to eliminate LGBTQ protections in other federal regulations. “If the final rule is anything like the proposed rule, HHS is adopting changes that would be harmful in the best of times but that are especially cruel in the midst of a global pandemic that is disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities and exacerbating disparities,” Katie Keith, a lawyer and Georgetown professor who’s tracked the rule, told Politico. HHS declined to comment on the possibility of a pending APRIL 30, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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