6

This article claims that

The Trump administration is moving to scrap an Obama-era policy that protected LGBTQ patients from discrimination.

However the proposal in question claims it would only be removing unenforceable provisions which were therefore not actually protecting LGBT individuals:

Because the preliminary injunction continues to be in effect, HHS cannot, and has not since the date of the injunction, enforced the rule’s provisions the court said are likely unlawful. The proposed rule would revise the provisions subject to those injunctions to conform with the plain understanding recognized by the court.

The provision also seems to only be changing provisions affecting trans individuals (and non-English speaking individuals, but that is out of scope of this question), not other part of the LGBTQ community.

My question is would this proposal actually remove existing protections, or otherwise make it legal for doctors to discriminate against LGBT individuals as the article claims?

Oddthinking
  • 140,378
  • 46
  • 548
  • 638
dsollen
  • 10,062
  • 12
  • 43
  • 71
  • 12
    It sounds like a more suitable q for Law or Politics SE as it involves some interpretation of legal texts (and projecting their future effect) ratter than some digging of facts. – Fizz Apr 28 '20 at 05:34
  • 3
    I think this falls under the [current events](https://skeptics.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2868/handling-news-questions-about-current-events/2870#2870) close reason - well, really, it's more a "future events" issue, which is even less answerable here. – V2Blast Apr 28 '20 at 07:48
  • Yeah, after reading through the description and commentary, this is something very up for debate to me. It's definitely true that there are people who claim that it will lead to medical discrimination against LGBT individuals, but whether it would is more fuzzy. – Sean Duggan Apr 28 '20 at 12:30
  • 2
    From a purely technical standpoint, it looks like this proposed revision removes text which has been legally blocked since its inception, although claims have been accepted since that time, so one could argue that it's a null effect, but of course this would also remove the ability to eventually resolve those challenges. – Sean Duggan Apr 28 '20 at 12:43

0 Answers0