A federal judge in Fort Worth agreed Wednesday with a group of Christian conservatives that Affordable Care Act requirements to cover HIV prevention drugs violate their religious freedom.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor also agreed that aspects of the federal government’s system for deciding what preventive care is covered by the ACA violates the Constitution.
O’Connor’s ruling could threaten access to sexual and reproductive health care for more than 150 million working Americans who are on employer-sponsored health care plans. It is likely to be appealed by the federal government.
This lawsuit is the latest in a decade of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, many of which have run through O’Connor’s courtroom. In 2018, O’Connor ruled that the entirety of the ACA was unconstitutional, a decision that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
At issue in the class-action lawsuit is a 2020 mandate requiring health care plans to cover HIV prevention medication, known as PrEP, free of charge as preventive care.
In the suit, a group of self-described Christian business owners and employees in Texas argue that the preventive care mandates violate their constitutional right to religious freedom by requiring companies and policyholders to pay for coverage that conflicts with their faith and personal values.
The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Austin attorney Jonathan Mitchell, the legal mind behind Texas’ civilly enforced six-week abortion ban. In the suit, Mitchell also challenges the entire framework through which the federal government decides what preventive services get covered.
O’Connor threw out several of Mitchell’s arguments but agreed that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s system for deciding what health care services are required to be fully covered under the ACA violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“At a high level, this lawsuit is part of a larger pushback against the government’s ability to regulate,” said Allison Hoffman, a law professor at Penn Carey Law at the University of Pennsylvania. “And then also asking what happens when regulations and religion clash.”
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The lawsuit specifically addresses PrEP, but O’Connor’s ruling, which addresses how the federal government can decide what preventive care is covered in employer health care plans, may end up having much more wide-reaching consequences, Hoffman said.
“We’re talking about vaccines, we’re talking about mammograms, we’re talking about basic preventative health care that was being fully covered,” she said. “This is opening the doors to things that the ACA tried to eliminate, in terms of health plans that got to pick and choose what of these services they fully covered.”
The American Medical Association, along with 60 leading medical organizations, issued a statement condemning the lawsuit.
“With an adverse ruling, patients would lose access to vital preventive health care services, such as screening for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, heart disease, diabetes, preeclampsia, and hearing, as well as access to immunizations critical to maintaining a healthy population,” the organizations wrote.
While implementation has not been as universal as hoped, fully funded preventive care through the ACA has been shown to be largely effective at improving health outcomes, reducing health care spending and increasing uptake of these services.
It’s a familiar set of villains, including the hand-picked judge, making the same kind of tired arguments about how “Christians” deserve to be exempt from laws they don’t like, even at the expense of literally everyone else’s health. And while SCOTUS has regularly batted aside these malicious lawsuits, I don’t have any faith they’ll do the same this time. TPM, Reform Austin, and The 19th have more.
Put the shoe on the other foot. Let’s say conservatives take the White house and demand that health plans pay for ivermectin as a prophylactic tx for Covid-19. That would be going against the sincerely held belief (an article of faith?) of millions of Americans. Would you want to be forced to pay for something completely anathema to your belief system?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35070575/
”Conclusion: In this large PSM study, regular use of ivermectin as a prophylactic agent was associated with significantly reduced COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates.”
Kuff, you forgot to mention that one of the plaintiffs in this case is world class scum bucket Steven Hotze. I guess we need to ad a question to the list we want to ask him “Dr.” Hotze, why would you want one of your employees to die, simply because they are vulnerable to AIDS?