The Biden administration on Friday announced sweeping new protections for gay and transgender patients, preventing federally funded health care providers and insurers from discriminating based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The new rule reverses a policy put in place by the Trump administration and helps fulfill part of President Biden’s promise to restore civil rights protections for LGBTQ people that were repealed by his predecessor.
“Today’s settlement is a huge step forward for this country toward a more equitable and inclusive health care system and means that Americans across the country now have a clear opportunity to exercise their rights against discrimination when they go to and talk to their doctor.” Health Plan or participate in HHS health programs,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
The rule changes federal policy in an area that has become a political flashpoint as more than 20 Republican-led states have banned or restricted gender-specific care for minors in recent years, and is likely to trigger legal challenges. The history of the regime itself illustrates the political sensitivity: under three successive presidents it has now taken on three different forms.
The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, introduced comprehensive civil rights protections into the U.S. health care system through Section 1557. It prohibits discrimination against patients based on race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in “any health care program or activity” that receives federal funding and covers a wide portion of the U.S. health care system.
In 2016, the Obama administration issued a less sweeping version of the rule approved by the Biden administration on Friday, requiring health care providers to provide medically appropriate treatment to transgender patients. Officials argued at the time that the Affordable Care Act’s protections from discrimination included gender identity. The Obama rule became embroiled in litigation and the Trump administration refused to enforce it.
Conservative opponents of the rule have argued that the rule could effectively force doctors to provide medical services to which they might have objected, including on religious grounds. In 2020, the Trump administration officially narrowed the legal definition of gender discrimination to no longer include protections for transgender people.
The rule approved by the Biden administration on Friday says it maintains religious exemptions and “does not mandate or require the provision of any particular medical service.”
“Section 1557 prohibits discrimination based on certain prohibited grounds and does not interfere with an individual’s clinical assessment of the appropriate treatment of a patient,” the rule states.
After the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s ban on sex discrimination also applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the Biden administration began reversing the Trump administration’s policies.
Republican officials continued to work to maintain Trump-era rule. In 2022, after the Biden administration issued a proposed version of the rule that it finalized on Friday, a group of Republican attorneys general wrote to Mr. Becerra suggesting they might sue if the Health and Human Services Department continued the policy .
The proposed rule was intensively scrutinized by supporters and opponents. The Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that it had received more than 85,000 comments.
Groups advocating for the end of Trump-era rule welcomed the Biden administration’s decision on Friday. “Countless Americans can now find comfort in knowing that they cannot be turned away from the health care they need simply because of who they are or who they love,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign.
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2024-04-27 03:58:48
www.nytimes.com
