In his recent request for fiscal year 2022 discretionary funding, President Biden has asked Congress for a 24% increase in funding (to $47.9 million) for HHS Office for Civil Rights “to ensure protection of civil rights in...more
Introduction - Recent litigation has once again illustrated the ways in which religious beliefs and bioethics can collide under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in healthcare by entities...more
Judge Frederick Block of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has preliminarily enjoined HHS from revising the Obama-era definitions of sex discrimination under Section 1557 of the ACA. See Walker v....more
8/19/2020
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Discrimination ,
Employee Training ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender Identity ,
Health Care Providers ,
LGBTQ ,
Section 1557 ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination
The United States Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) has issued new guidance on prohibiting racial discrimination in healthcare, and new enforcement actions show that HHS OCR remains...more
On June 12, HHS issued its new final rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act—the Act’s nondiscrimination provision. This final rule revises the Obama Administration’s 2016 regulation in numerous and significant...more
The Office for Civil Rights at HHS has announced the resolution of its first civil-rights investigations concerning the COVID-19 public health emergency. First, on April 8, HHS OCR announced a resolution of its review of the...more
Over the weekend, the Office for Civil Rights at HHS announced that it has opened several investigations into various states’ plans and guidelines related to the allocation of scarce resources amid the ongoing health...more
Healthcare providers are under extraordinary pressure in these unprecedented times, and they are deserving of nothing less than our utmost support and gratitude....more
On August 12, 2019, the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS OCR”) announced that it has entered into a Voluntary Resolution Agreement with Michigan State University pursuant to Section...more
Developments continue under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, the Act’s nondiscrimination provision. For example, the first federal appellate court in the nation (the Sixth Circuit) has recently interpreted the...more
On May 24, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) issued its proposed rule to revise the regulation implementing and enforcing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Act’s Nondiscrimination...more
On February 11, 2019, the United States Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) announced that it has resolved yet another complaint for disability discrimination in healthcare using its Early...more
In response to the national opioid crisis, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a public education campaign on the civil rights protections surrounding...more
In January 2018, HHS unexpectedly announced a newly proposed regulation entitled “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Healthcare,” which proposes new prohibitions and notice requirements for institutional healthcare...more
In a class-action lawsuit, the Northern District of Illinois has deepened a pre-existing district-court split on a key legal question under Section 1557 of the ACA and, in doing so, explicitly rejected a pivotal HHS OCR...more
In a momentous decision that will certainly garner national attention and be subject to appeal, a district court for the Southern District of California has ruled that Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibits...more
On July 10, 2017, the Northern District of Texas stayed its much-watched Section 1557 case (known as the Franciscan Alliance case) pending HHS’s decision to revisit or revise its regulation under Section 1557.
At issue in...more
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (HHS OCR), the office tasked with enforcing Section 1557 of the ACA, has a new Director and Deputy Director for Civil Rights. The new Director, Roger...more
On New Year’s Eve, a federal court in the Northern District of Texas granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against two related HHS interpretations of the final Nondiscrimination rule issued under Section 1557 of the...more
This article is the first in a series addressing the new risks facing healthcare providers under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.
By now, healthcare providers undoubtedly know about Section 1557 of the Affordable...more
On August 23, 2016, several States and three faith-based healthcare providers filed suit in the Northern District of Texas against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) over HHS’s interpretation of “sex” in...more
On September 8, 2015, HHS published its proposed regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. In a previous article on Section 1557, entitled “The Future of Healthcare Discrimination Litigation,” we...more