Earlier this year, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services adopted final federal regulations concerning the anti-discrimination mandate of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which essentially is the civil rights provision of the ACA. The objective of this statute and its related regulations is to expand access to health care and coverage by removing barriers imposed by discrimination and concomitantly to decrease health care disparities by protecting those health care consumers who have been particularly susceptible and vulnerable to discrimination.

Broadly stated, Section 1557 prohibits health care providers that receive funding from the federal government from refusing to provide care to an individual or otherwise discriminate against that person on the basis of that person’s race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. Section 1557 imposes similar requirements on health insurance carriers that are the recipients of federal financial aid. In terms of coverage, this statute encompasses recipients of financial aid from health programs administered by the HHS, those entities that receive financial assistance from HHS and the Health Insurance Marketplaces. Section 1557 is the first federal civil rights law to proscribe discrimination on the basis of sex in all federally funded health care programs and is designed to enhance and amplify existing and long-standing anti-discrimination laws.

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