Labor & Employment Law: Vermont and Federal Legislative Update
#WorkforceWednesday: SCOTUS Decision on LGBTQ Employees, EEOC on Older Workers Returning to Work - Employment Law This Week®
As the temperatures continue to rise, regulations and litigation related to employer-sponsored group health plans have followed suit. As these new rules continue to evolve, we are often asked whether a self-insured group...more
Our April 9 blog post highlighted several issues to watch during 2024, one of which was gender-affirming care considerations. Just over a month later, there have now been three key developments with respect to that issue:...more
Transgender protections and rights in the workplace are currently the subject of much confusion. This issue extends to employer-sponsored health plans. Whether an employer-sponsored health plan must cover gender-affirming...more
On the heels of several recent court decisions concerning gender-affirming care, a federal district court in Washington concluded that the denial of benefits for gender-affirming care by a third-party administrator (“TPA”)...more
On December 5, 2022, the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina held that the North Carolina State Health Plan (NCSHP) constitutes a “Health Program or Activity” under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In so...more
Since it was enacted in 2010, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“Section 1557”) has prohibited discrimination in covered health programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or...more
Senate Scrambles Ahead of Summer Escape. While members of the U.S. House of Representatives returned home for the August congressional recess, the U.S. Senate remained in Washington, D.C., this week to wrap up some...more
On August 4, 2022, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM or proposed rule) to reinterpret section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which prohibits...more
On July 25, 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a long-awaited proposed rule on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the nondiscrimination protections...more
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday it now interprets—and will enforce—Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s October term started earlier this month, and promises to be an unprecedented session. How is the Court responding to the pandemic and adapting to a virtual environment? Which cases should you be...more
A federal court ruling staying key parts of new Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations in light of the landmark Supreme Court of the United States ruling on sexual orientation and gender identity will provide little certainty...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York blocked federal rules seeking to remove nondiscrimination protections for health care patients. The blocked rules would have removed protections against...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has blocked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from enforcing a new rule that limited sex discrimination in healthcare to discrimination based...more
Supreme Court decisions are often the most challenging pieces of legal guidance to understand. They are rarely straightforward and usually contain so much analysis that it becomes hard to get to the bottom of what was...more
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibits health programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. ...more
Most employer-sponsored health plans will be exempt from the primary Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision governing race, color, age, sex, disability, and national origin discrimination under new final rules issued by the U.S....more
On June 15, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia. At issue in Bostock was whether an employer could fire an employee for being gay or transgender without...more