OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s new rule that limits anti-discrimination protections initially set forth under Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
The Trump Administration announced that it would roll back regulations about the Health Care Rights Law, the part of the ACA which protects transgender people and others in the LGBTQ+ community from discrimination in health care and insurance coverage.
“Under the rule, about 1.5 million Washingtonians will not have broad antidiscrimination protections when seeking health care. This includes an estimated 82,000 LGBTQ patients, including as many as 16,000 transgender patients,” Ferguson said in a news release.
The Trump Administration’s rule came only a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 15 decision that discrimination on the basis of transgender status or sexual orientation is unlawful.
Ferguson’s lawsuit claims that this new rule defies the Supreme Court’s ruling. He said it also violates the express language and fundamental purpose of the Affordable Care Act to increase access to health insurance and health care, and violates patients’ constitutional rights.
The rule also allows religious health care organizations, including religious hospitals and their employees, to discriminate on the basis of sex. Providers may deny services based on religious belief without any safeguards ensuring the patient is able to receive timely, necessary care from another source.
“We should be working to eliminate discrimination in our health care system, not allowing it,” Ferguson said. “President Trump’s unlawful attempt to roll back anti-discrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act directly threatens the health and lives of Washingtonians. We’re in the middle of a pandemic — broad health care coverage has rarely been more critical. I will not allow the Trump Administration to attack Washingtonians’ access to unbiased care.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee weighed in, saying in a statement: “Equal access to health care should never be a question, much less in the middle of a pandemic. This discriminatory and disgraceful rule is an attack on transgender patients and undermines Washingtonians’ access to reproductive services and multi-lingual care. I strongly support the Attorney General’s challenge to ensure this cruel and unlawful policy does not stand.”
With this lawsuit, Ferguson will have filed 66 lawsuits against the Trump Administration.