Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Center sues Trump over roll back of ACA’s anti-discrimination protections

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The Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown has joined a group of other organizations around the country suing the Trump Administration over the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services action to remove LGBTQ people and other populations from the protections of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and other bases.

This is not Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center’s first time suing the Trump administration. In 2019, Bradbury-Sullivan, represented by Lambda Legal, was a plaintiff in Santa Clara v. Azar, a move to block the Trump Administration’s Denial-of-Care Rule. In response to the lawsuit, a District Court vacated the rule in its entirety in November.

“While HHS’s health care discrimination rule cannot change the law, it creates chaos and confusion where there was once clarity about the right of everyone in our communities, and specifically transgender people, to receive health care free of discrimination,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior attorney and health care strategist for Lambda Legal, which is handling the lawsuit along with Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

In 2016, the Obama administration finalized a rule implementing the nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act—also known as Section 1557—that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, transgender status, or sex stereotypes as forms of sex discrimination.

In May 2019 the Trump administration announced a proposed rule change designed to roll back these protections.

Last week HHS published the health care discrimination rule eliminating LGBTQ protections, which is scheduled to go into effect Aug. 18.

Adrian Shanker, executive director of the center, said even with the protections under Section 1557, his organization has had to advocate with health insurers for such things as continuing hormone therapy.

While in the case he was referring to he said they were able to get the insurer to reverse the decision and apologize to the member, further stripping away such protections would make it even more difficult for many marginalized groups to obtain the proper health care.

He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that sex discrimination policies include sexual orientation and gender identity, overruling the HHS action.

The lawsuit, Whitman-Walker Clinic v. HHS, is filed on behalf of Whitman-Walker Health, the TransLatin@ Coalition, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality, AGLP: The Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, and four individual doctors.