#section 1557

So recently the Trump administration finalized a rule that is going to remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and insurance. 

The rule focuses on nondiscrimination protections laid out in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Federal law established that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. In 2016, an Obama-era rule explained that the word "sex" used in the rule also includes those based on gender identity, which it defined as "male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female" 

In June 2019, under Trump, the HHS office for Civil rights proposed a rule that reverses the one Obama put in place. 

Roger Servino, the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, says that this rule will save hospitals money since they will be relieved of the requirement to print notices of nondiscrimination in multiple languages. 

Just to make this clear, Servino says that taking  the protection from discrimination away from transgender and nonbinary individuals is good because it will fucking save money. This is fucking bullshit. 

Under this rule, a transgender person could be refused a checkup at a doctor's office. A transgender man could be denied treatment for ovarian cancer,  or a hysterectomy would not be covered by an insurer, or a surgery could cost more when it's related to someone's gender transition. 

This rule could also mean that people seeking an abortion could be denied care if the procedure violates the doctor's moral or religious beliefs. 

Even with the rule finalized, an LGBTQ person who has been discriminated against can still sue, and courts might still rule that their civil rights were violated, but that's not an easy road to take. 

Because of limited access to litigation, the ramifications of this rule are huge. Protection can also vary based on where someone lives, so this will create a patchwork of civil rights, where not everyone will have the same protection. 

This is so fucked up, and I don't even think there's much we can do about it. 

Congress does have a way of invalidating this rule using the Congressional Review Act, but that would only happen if 2 things happen within the 60 days that Congress is in session

1) Trump is no longer the president and

2) Simple majorities in both chambers of Congress vote to block the rule

Even if Democrats do well in November, it's still very unlikely for both these things to happen. 

Source

More info on Sec. 1557:  Court Issues Nationwide Injunction Prohibiting Enforcement of Section 1557 Provisions Relating to Gender Identity and Termination of Pregnancy – But Other Provisions Still Can Be Enforced

Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani at ThinkProgress: 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new rule Friday that would seriously harm transgender people’s access to health care.

The department announced a revision to the nondiscrimination section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as “Section 1557.” That provision prevented discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex. Under the Obama administration, the department interpreted sex discrimination to also include discrimination against transgender people. On Friday, however, HHS announced that it would only recognize the “plain meaning of the term.”

Roger Severino, the head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, told reporters Friday that under the Obama administration, HHS interpreted nondiscrimination protections on the basis of sex to include someone’s sense of being “male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female,” as well as the termination of pregnancy.

The rule was previously challenged by religious groups who said it violated their beliefs, and a federal court issued an injunction blocking HHS from enforcing Section 1557’s non-discrimination protections for trans people and pregnant people. In April, the Justice Department said in court filings that it agreed with the decision and called the Obama administration’s expanded interpretation of the protections illegal.

[...]

The Trump administration has repeatedly gone out of its way to harm transgender people and their interests in its policy decisions. On Wednesday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a new rule that would allow federally funded homeless shelters to refuse to serve transgender people. Last month, HHS announced a new “conscience” rule, allowing health care workers to refuse to provide medical procedures — like sex reassignment surgery or abortion — if it violates their religious or moral beliefs. In March, the Department of Defense established a new policy that transgender people can serve in the military, but only if they do so according to their sex assigned at birth. People with a gender dysphoria diagnosis who are taking hormones or who have transitioned to another gender will not be allowed to serve under the new policy.

ICYMI: this May the US Department of Health and Human Services did a freaking amazing and historic thing.  So, you know the ACA is a thing regarding health insurance access (yeah, we know it’s not the fix-all perfect thing but it has expanded insurance coverage to shit-ton of people!). But did you know this... 

The ACA’s Section 1557 banned discrimination in health care on the basis of “sex” for the first time in U.S. law. Like other departments in the Obama administration have done, HHS interpreted this to include all aspects of gender identity, guaranteeing transgender people have access to the services they require:

A covered entity shall provide individuals equal access to its health programs or activities without discrimination on the basis of sex; and a covered entity shall treat individuals consistent with their gender identity, except that a covered entity may not deny or limit health services that are ordinarily or exclusively available to individuals of one sex, to a transgender individual based on the fact that the individual’s sex assigned at birth, gender identity, or gender otherwise recorded is different from the one to which such health services are ordinarily or exclusively available.