The Trump administration is about to publish a rule that will allow health care providers and insurers to deny service to patients/customers based on their “religious beliefs”. The rule does not go into effect immediately: it has to be published in the Federal Register for public comment for 90 days and then HHS has to take into consideration public comments before it is finalized. So all of you involved in health care, women’s rights, the LGBTQ community, end of life care, it is important to react now.
Obviously, this new rule covers abortion, but also sterilization or assisted suicide. LGBTQ groups fear it will reduce care for gay and transgender people. Some of the language is super vague, it allows Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care associations to deny “counseling or referral for certain services.” Please comment if you know what is being targeted there.
For those of us concerned about vaccination rates, this rule provides protections from “compulsory health care or services” like hearing screening, occupational illness testing, vaccination, and mental health treatment.
According to the WaPo, the rule would strengthen parental rights on vaccination refusals:
Saying that these parental rights flow from existing federal laws, the rule says that children cannot be made to undergo suicide assessment or early treatment if their parents or legal guardian hold religious or moral objections to such services. And in any state that allows parents to exercise religious objections to childhood vaccines or to testing newborns for hearing loss, doctors must heed those parents’ wishes.
For international health programs like PEPFAR, the government cannot require that grantees use “a multisectoral or comprehensive approach to combating HIV/AIDS,” or participate with “any program or activity to which the organization has a religious or moral objection.” That might mean that religious groups can apply for funding to support non-standard of care, non-medical approaches to the reduction of the spread of AIDs abroad. Again, those of you who know what the wording is really saying, please comment!
This is just a first skim of the rule, there will probably be more nuggets of medical nonsense to be unearthed on closer reading.
Full text of the rule here: www.hhs.gov/...