Trump administration will gut transgender healthcare protections

The Trump administration appears poised to gut protections under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for transgender individuals and pregnant people.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on Tuesday for a voluntary reprimand and stay to halt ongoing litigation in a Texas federal court over section 1557 regulations that prohibits any entities that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, skin color, national origin, sex, age, or disability.

The Texas court ruled in December, in Franciscan Alliance v. Burwell, that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was blocked “from enforcing the Rule’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of gender identity or termination of pregnancy.”

The DOJ filing requests the regulations be sent back to HHS for review, to determine, as the filing states, ” to assess the reasonableness, necessity, and efficacy of the two aspects of the regulation that are challenged in this case, and to address issues identified by the Court in granting Plaintiffs a preliminary injunction.”

The implication being that the issue will be moot once the current HHS, now headed by Tom Price, who was a vocal opponent of the ACA and received a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, decides to rescind those protections.

HHS has already decided not to challenge the preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of said protections.

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