BOSTON, March 31, 2023—This week, a United States District Court judge in Texas struck down a key provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring insurance companies and employers to fully cover preventive services with no copayments by patients.
Preventive screenings, such as colonoscopies, save lives. Making these services as accessible as possible is key to building health equity into our systems of health care.
The Affordable Care Act provision requiring that these services be provided for free without copayments has resulted in increased access to preventive care for millions of Americans, and rates of colorectal cancer screenings and other preventive screenings have steadily increased over the past decade.
This ruling comes less than a year after the same district court judge, Reed O’Connor, ruled that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that health insurance plans cover pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention violates the religious rights of employers.
Judge O’Connor, who also ruled in 2018 that the entire Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional, resurrected this flawed reasoning in his latest decision, claiming once again that requiring an employer to cover preventive services violates religious freedom. True religious freedom protects the free exercise of religion against government interference. It does not permit acts of discrimination under the guise of practicing religion.
Legal barriers to medically necessary care that are based on political or religious ideology rather than public health policy harm the health and
well-being of individuals, families, and communities. They disproportionately impact LGBTQIA+ people, BIPOC individuals, and other underserved communities, including millions of people who receive their health care through Medicaid.
Fenway Health was founded on the principle that health care is a right, not a privilege. We are as committed to that core belief now as we were when we were founded over fifty years ago. We will continue to do everything in our power to ensure that the people who count on us – and people everywhere – have access to the health care they need.