HHS Final Denial of Care Rule Puts Patients at Risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shin Inouye, [email protected],  202.869.0398

WASHINGTON – Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a final rule to allow health workers to cite religious or moral objections to deny care to patients:

“HHS’s final denial of care rule will substantially harm the health and well-being of many – in particular women and transgender patients. The government should protect all patients from discrimination, not make it easier for those in the health care system to discriminate. The rule is also arbitrary and capricious and exceeds the scope of the laws that it seeks to enforce. This rule must be scrapped.”

The Leadership Conference and its Health Care Task Force submitted comments last year in response to HHS’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on its denial of care rule. Those comments are available here.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.