FAIR in Medicine submitted a public comment to uphold healthcare providers’ rights to religious, conflict of conscience, and independent medical judgment freedoms.
We hope you will submit a comment too.
On August 4, 2022 the Department of Health and Human Services (the “Department”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking titled, “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities” (the “Proposed Rule”). The Proposed Rule seeks to amend regulations already in effect which implement Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (the “ACA”). Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits discrimination in the provision of healthcare services that are funded by the Federal government.
FAIR in Medicine supports efforts to ensure that healthcare is delivered in a non-discriminatory manner, and that healthcare providers are able to deliver healthcare in accordance with their sincerely-held beliefs. Unfortunately, certain provisions of the Proposed Rule would create unreasonable burdens on healthcare providers’ First Amendment freedoms as well as impede providers’ ability to practice medicine based on their professional, independent medical judgment.
In order to relay our concerns to the Department, FAIR in Medicine has submitted a public comment to address the following topics:
- The expansion of the regulations to cover Medicare Part B (outpatient) services;
- The expansion of the classes protected by Section 1557 to include gender identity and sexual orientation;
- The unreasonable burden placed upon providers who wish to abstain from providing certain healthcare services on the basis of their sincerely-held religious beliefs or conflicts of conscience;
- The Department’s usurping of the medical-scientific process in determining the standard of care relating to sex-transition and gender-affirming medical treatment.
FAIR in Medicine is urging the Department to amend the proposed regulations accordingly. We encourage you to submit your own comment to make your concerns known. Click the button below to download suggested comments.
We encourage our healthcare provider supporters to submit their own comments by the October 3rd, 2022 deadline.
Submit a comment on the regulations.gov website
Below is text we have prepared that you can use in your own comment if you wish.
