Healthcare Archives - American Atheists

American Atheists Calls for Ending Religious Denial of Care

American Atheists — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 15:54:51 +0000

Washington, D.C.—This week, American Atheists wrote in support of the Biden Administration’s proposal to rescind the Trump Administration’s dangerous denial of care rule. This regulation allows hospitals, doctors, nurses, orderlies, and even insurance companies to cite their personal religious beliefs in order to deny a patient care. “Religion should never be a justification to refuse necessary medical care, and we hope that [the Biden Administration’s proposal] will help restore a much-needed focus on patient health and well-being, rather than a disproportionate focus on the beliefs of hospitals and providers,” wrote Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists. The organization provided suggestions for various amendments to strengthen the Biden Administration’s final rule. These include rejecting outright the Trump Administration’s false framing of “federal conscience and nondiscrimination laws,” as well as clarifying any remaining enforcement provisions. In comments submitted to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Gill noted that denial of care has a disproportionate negative impact on vulnerable communities, including atheists and nonreligious people. She called for better data collection on the impact of health care discrimination on atheists and religious minorities. Read American Atheists’ full comments here:

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Atheists Applaud Biden Administration for Working to Restore Health Care Protections Against Religiously Motivated Discrimination

American Atheists — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 17:07:40 +0000

Washington, D.C.—Today, American Atheists applauded the Biden Administration’s release of proposed regulations restoring nondiscrimination protections in health care included in the Affordable Care Act. In 2010, President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act, which included in Section 1557 nondiscrimination protections for patients seeking medical care. In 2016, the Obama Administration finalized rules that provide inclusive protections under this law. However, in 2020, the Trump Administration added religious exemptions with the express purpose of undermining those protections. The Administration particularly targeted pregnant patients, transgender and gender-nonconforming patients, non-English speakers, and patients who’d previously had an abortion. “The Department of Health and Human Services should be able to enforce basic nondiscrimination laws without special accommodations for the fringe objections of Christian extremists who want to discriminate,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy. “We applaud the Biden Administration for taking these important steps to prohibit discrimination, while avoiding the dangerously broad religious exemptions the Trump Administration created.” “However, the activist majority on the Supreme Court and extremists in other federal courts endanger even commonsense protections. The well-funded Christian nationalist movement and its judges are doing all they can to make nondiscrimination protections a thing of the past,” she explained. “I worry that it’s only a matter of time before the Supreme Court invents a reason to strike down these reasonable civil rights protections,” said Nick Fish, president of Americans Atheists. “The dangerous religious extremists who dominate the highest court in the land have time and time again ignored the plain language of the law, decades of precedent, and the will of the American people in order to let their Christian nationalist allies discriminate in the name of religion.” “It’s time for Congress to repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which enables these broad exemptions, and enact real, meaningful reform of our federal court system, including expanding the Supreme Court,” Fish added. “Our nation’s judicial system is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis entirely of its own making. Unless big changes are made, America will continue to hurtle down the path toward a theocracy.”

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Ohio Residents: Stop Dangerous Religious Refusals in Health Care!

American Atheists — Thu, 10 Jun 2021 20:22:15 +0000

The Ohio Senate has endangered all Ohioans by inserting extremely broad denial of care bill language into the state’s budget (HB 110). This dangerous provision allows health care providers, hospitals, insurance companies, and even employers to refuse to provide or pay for care based on their beliefs, opening the door to widespread denial of care and discrimination. Our best chance to stop this religious provision is in the conference committee! Please act now and ask committee members to stop this dangerous denial of care language from passing into law. The simple fact is that this religious refusal language will allow health care providers and payers to deny needed services, not for medical reasons but based on their religious beliefs, risking the health and safety of all patients in Ohio. Should your boss’s religious beliefs dictate what health care your family can or cannot receive? We say No! This provision will have unpredictable and far-reaching negative consequences, affecting health care such as contraception, end-of-life care, vaccination, pregnancy & reproductive services, counseling & behavioral health, fertility treatment, PrEP & HIV treatment, and many others. This is especially devastating to women, older Americans, LGBTQ people, people living with HIV, people with disabilities, and those living in rural areas. Please act now — ask Ohio lawmakers not to put the religious beliefs of hospitals and employers above patients’ health and safety!

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Texans: Oppose Dangerous Religious Exemptions in Health Care!

American Atheists — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 16:02:21 +0000

The Texas House Public Health Committee is considering a bill (HB 1424) that creates dangerously broad religious exemptions for health care providers and institutions, allowing them to deny care based on their beliefs. This bill opens the door to widespread refusal of care and discrimination in the name of religion. Help stop this terrible bill now before it gets any further! Email the committee members and ask them to OPPOSE HB 1424! This dangerous bill will allow health care providers and hospitals to deny any needed services, risking the health and safety of all patients in Texas. HB 1424 will have unpredictable and far-reaching negative consequences, affecting health care such as contraception, end-of-life care, vaccination, pregnancy & reproductive services, counseling & behavioral health, fertility treatment, PrEP & HIV treatment, and many others. This is especially devastating to women, older Americans, LGBTQ people, people living with HIV, people with disabilities, and those living in rural areas. Please act now — ask Texas lawmakers not to put the personal beliefs of hospitals and providers above patients’ health and safety!

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American Atheists Praises NY Legislation to Ensure Hospital Transparency

American Atheists — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 17:29:19 +0000

Albany, NY–Today, the civil rights organization American Atheists praised New York Assemblywoman Nily Rozic and Senator Michelle Hinchey for announcing legislation that will improve healthcare and save lives. This important bill ensures that New Yorkers have access to vital information about whether the hospital in their area provides the care they need prior to admission. The legislation will direct the NY Department of Health to collect a list of policy-based exclusions from each general hospital and to publish a list of the hospitals that have such exclusions, and the specific policy-based exclusions for each, on its website. American Atheists joins New York Civil Liberties Union, the National Institute of Reproductive Health (NIRH), Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts, and Schenectady Coalition for Healthcare Access in supporting this legislation. By partnering with organizations and lawmakers, American Atheists has worked to introduce similar legislation in other states. “The current pandemic has laid bare how crucial hospital care is and how little we know about what care each hospital provides,” said Assemblywoman Rozic. “No patient should be denied the care they need simply because they had no way to know that their local hospital excluded certain procedures. This legislation will go a long way to ensure New Yorkers have access to the data they deserve in order to make informed decisions about their health care needs.” Senator Michelle Hinchey said, “It’s well past time to strengthen information transparency in our healthcare system. All New Yorkers have the right to know what medical services are available at their local hospital. This is especially important now as we are seeing a wave of hospital consolidations and, therefore, the loss of services in communities across the state. Our legislation will ensure that New Yorkers have access to the information they need to make the most informed health decisions possible for themselves and their families. At the same time, this bill will allow us to identify key service gaps that are leaving entire regions of our state without access to proper types of care. This is a critical step towards greater health equity for all New Yorkers.” “When New Yorkers are in the middle of a medical emergency, they need to know that their hospital will treat them, not turn them away for discriminatory reasons. Thankfully, Assemblymember Rozic and Senator Hinchey have introduced important legislation to fix this life-threatening problem,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists. “No one should find out that a hospital will deny them care until it’s too late.” Read additional quotes here. Since 2003, over 40 community hospitals in New York have closed. Currently, large health care systems now control more than 70 percent of acute hospital beds, and hospital mergers in New York continue apace. Unfortunately, these large hospital systems sometimes remove categories of care from local hospitals, leaving patients in regions of the state without access to particular types of care, including some types of emergency care. Too often, patients do not have the ability to determine whether the hospital, or hospitals, in their area provides the care they seek, because information about how hospitals’ restrictions […]

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Stop State Lawmakers from Using Beliefs to Deny Healthcare

American Atheists — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 21:03:07 +0000

As a Kentuckian, it’s disappointing to see that my state legislators are prioritizing discrimination over some of the most pressing issues in our commonwealth. In the middle of a pandemic, when healthcare is so critically important to all of us, the Kentucky Senate is advancing a Denial of Healthcare Law, Senate Bill 83. It’s even more disappointing to see similar bills popping up in other states, like Arkansas, Montana, New Mexico, South Carolina, and South Dakota. Kentucky Senator Stephen Meredith’s bill would allow any worker in a healthcare setting—from doctors, nurses, and therapists, to nutritionists, physical therapists, nursing home faculty, hospital custodians, and more—to refuse to provide any service based on a philosophical or religious belief. Essentially, a healthcare worker could refuse to do their job and their employer could take no action against them. Even worse, this bill allows hospitals and payers to also refuse to provide or cover healthcare—including employers and insurance companies! Can you imagine all the services that could be denied and all the different “religious/philosophical beliefs” workers, employers, and insurers might have? Remember Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to do her job and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples? Imagine if everyone working in a healthcare setting—or even your boss—had a legal right to deny you medical services. Here are a few examples in which “religious/philosophical beliefs” could be used to deny medical care. Receptionists could refuse to check in any patient they disapprove of: a single woman receiving pregnancy care, an overweight person receiving care for heart disease, a person living with HIV, a young person receiving a vaccine, or a smoker receiving care for lung cancer. Nursing homes would be able to refuse elderly people their ongoing treatment that they disagree with, such as contraception to prevent STIs, HIV care, or end-of-life palliative care. A pharmacist would be able to refuse to fill any prescription with which they disagree, ranging from contraception to HIV medication and beyond, and then refuse to refer the prescription to allow the patient to get it filled elsewhere. A medical researcher could refuse to publish the results of a government funded study if the results conflict with that individual’s personal beliefs. Your employer could refuse to cover pregnancy care to encourage women not to have children and take maternity leave. Think of all the harm to you, your friends, and family who are women, older Americans, living in rural areas, living with HIV, LGBTQ, or impoverished. Religious or philosophical refusals are not merely a matter of individual rights because they always affect someone else’s health or access to care, including your loved ones. There is simply no evidence that health care workers are regularly forced to provide health services that violate their religious beliefs. In fact, the opposite is true. Hospitals and other healthcare institutions regularly accommodate the desire of workers to avoid certain procedures that do not align with their beliefs. The number of instances where a worker has been purportedly forced to engage in such activities unwillingly is shockingly low. At the federal level, the Department of Health and Human Services for Civil Rights […]

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On Day After Failed Coup, Trump Destroys HHS Nondiscrimination Protections

American Atheists — Fri, 08 Jan 2021 02:33:24 +0000

Washington, D.C.—Today, the church/state watchdog American Atheists denounced the Trump Administration’s latest attack on civil rights, a new regulation that strips vital nondiscrimination protections from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) grant programs. This rule will allow organizations receiving HHS grants to discriminate when providing government-funded services and will primarily impact discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, and religion. HHS has long prevented organizations and individuals from receiving grants if they discriminate while providing services. In 2016, the Obama Administration passed a rule that expanded these nondiscrimination protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity. With today’s final rule, the Trump Administration has eliminated these protections for LGBTQ people, despite the recent Bostock v. Clayton County Supreme Court decision, which extended federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ people. “HHS provides more than $500 billion in grants annually to support the health and wellbeing of all Americans. Religious groups wanted access to this money — but they didn’t want to be forced to serve LGBTQ people or those with differing beliefs. And now, on their way out the door, the Administration is changing the rules to give these groups exactly what they want: access to public funds with no strings attached,” said Alison Gill. “Taxpayers should not be forced to fund discrimination, nor should Americans be turned away from government-funded programs. It’s an egregious attack on religious freedom.” American Atheists notes that this rule change will significantly impact adoption and foster care, where services are often provided by religious child welfare agencies. Based on this rule, agencies that discriminate against potential parents for being LGBTQ or of another religion cannot be denied federal funding for doing so. “Trump may have signed a massive check to religious bigots, but it’s children in desperate need of forever homes who will pay the price,” said Gill. “Children must come first, not the discriminatory beliefs of adoption agencies being paid by the government to serve them.” “The day after Donald Trump and his mob of Christian nationalists launched a failed coup at the Capitol, he is unconstitutionally and unilaterally assaulting the rights of millions of Americans. The timing could not be more revelatory,” said Nick Fish, president of American Atheists. “We call on the Biden Administration to halt implementation of this discriminatory rule.”

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Trump Administration Allows Religious Health Care Providers to Discriminate, as U.S. Coronavirus Cases Hit Two Million

American Atheists — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 21:42:02 +0000

Washington, D.C.—Today, American Atheists denounced the decision by the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services to finalize a health care rule that allows for increased discrimination amid a global pandemic. As a result of this rule, broad and unjustifiable religious exemptions will weaken Section 1557—the nondiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act—allowing health care providers to opt out of nondiscrimination rules. This will have a significant negative impact on health care access for transgender and gender nonconforming patients, pregnant women, women seeking reproductive services, and non-English speakers. “It is unconscionable that the Trump Administration is opening the door to discrimination against vulnerable groups at a time when they particularly need health care,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists. “Not only are these people among the most hard hit by the pandemic, but they can now be denied essential health care simply because of who they are. The health and well-being of millions and millions of Americans is now even more at risk.” In August 2019, American Atheists submitted testimony opposing the Department of Health and Human Services’ proposed rule. Yesterday, the United States became the first country with more than two million coronavirus cases. “There could not be a worse time for the Trump Administration to rubber stamp discrimination,” added Gill. “When this rule goes into effect, health care providers will be able to deny treatment to people that desperately need it, based on their own religious beliefs, rather than the best interests of their patient.” “The health care discrimination rule sends the message that unless you abide by Evangelical Christianity’s worldview on sexuality and gender, your life doesn’t matter,” said Nick Fish, president of American Atheists. “It’s just the latest attack on LGBTQ people by this administration under their distorted vision of religious liberty.” “If a transgender patient walked into a hospital seeking treatment for COVID-19—or any injury—this rule would allow doctors to turn them away without repercussions,” added Fish. “No matter what word games the Trump Administration wants to play here, it’s discrimination. Plain and simple. Saying I’m disgusted doesn’t even begin to describe my reaction to today’s announcement.”

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Let’s Not Forget the Trump Administration Has Spent Years Attacking Public Health in the Name of Religion

Alison Gill — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 15:57:27 +0000

Last week, Donald Trump announced his intention to reopen the United States by Easter despite health experts’ warnings (although he’s since walked back his comments). “It’s such an important day for other reasons,” Trump said in an attempt to ingratiate himself further with his evangelical base, imbuing this deadly decision with religious significance. “I just think it would be a beautiful timeline.” And it’s no coincidence that the President’s religious extremist supporters echoed this anti-science position. R.R. Reno, editor of the influential religious magazine, First Things, advocated for pulling the plug on life-saving coronavirus safety measures. “There is a demonic side to the sentimentalism of saving lives at any cost,” he wrote in a recent opinion column. “There are many things more precious than life.” Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of one of the largest evangelical universities in the world, demanded that Liberty University students return to campus, endangering their lives, as multiple students have either been quarantined or tested positive for COVID-19. And then there are defiant churches in Louisiana, Colorado, and elsewhere that are openly bucking public health recommendations, as they purposefully draw in large crowds with the promise of healing. The White House has shown support for these efforts through Tony Perkins, head of the Christian nationalist group Family Research Council. In this light, Trump’s statement that “it’ll be a beautiful time [to] have packed churches all over our country” makes perfect sense. But this is not the first time President Trump has undermined public health to win approval from his religious extremist backers. We must not forget that Trump and his appointees have spent the last three years doing everything they can to attack our national health care. For example, just within the last year: In March 2019, HHS issued a final rule giving preference to religious organizations to receive funding for Title X family planning programs. This program is a vital source of health care for low-income, rural, and minority women, and the new rules have pushed out important providers like Planned Parenthood in favor of so-called “crisis pregnancy centers.” These fake health centers are more interested in advancing their religous, anti-abortion agenda than serving the health needs of women. In May 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) finalized a rule to let health care providers and institutions deny care to patients based on religious beliefs. Later vacated by a federal court after legal challenge, this rule threatened the health, safety, and well-being of millions of Americans, as it would have allowed discrimination against vulnerable groups, such as LGBTQ people, people with HIV, women, and elderly people. In June 2019, HHS proposed a rule to strip protections for trans people from the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination regulations. Then in November, HHS simply decided to stop enforcement of critical civil rights protections in grant programs allowing organizations receiving health and human services grants—totalling more than $500 billion annually—to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, and religion. In December 2019, HHS published a final rule that requires health insurance offered through a state exchange to separately bill any costs relating […]

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Kentucky “Denial of Care” Bill Puts Kentuckians’ Lives in Jeopardy

American Atheists — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 19:32:08 +0000

Frankfort, KY—Today, the national religious equality watchdog organization American Atheists expressed grave concern about SB 90, a controversial bill that authorizes the denial of medical care based on the religious beliefs of insurance companies, providers, and institutions. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced this denial of medical care bill. “SB 90 is the worst denial of care bill we’ve ever seen. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, and even insurance companies could refuse patients essential health care services and then justify this based on religious belief,” said Alison Gill, Vice President for Legal and Policy at American Atheists, who submitted testimony opposing the bill. “Patients’ health care must always come first, particularly when lives are at stake,” said Johnny Pike, American Atheists’ Kentucky State Director. “Denying patients care in the name of someone else’s religious beliefs attacks patients’ own religious freedom.” “Kentucky’s Denial of Medical Care bill encourages abuse,” added Gill. “The potential ramifications of this poorly thought-out legislation are troubling.” Under Kentucky’s Denial of Medical Care bill, a receptionist could refuse to check in a single woman receiving pregnancy care, doctors could opt-out of providing any medical care without warning and without referral to a different provider, nursing homes could deny elderly people HIV treatments, pharmacists could refuse to provide contraception or medication, and insurance companies would have a ready excuse to deny any claim under the pretext of religious beliefs. The American Medical Association has condemned denial of medical care in the name of religion, citing “concern for vulnerable patient populations and asserting that conscience rights for physicians are not unlimited.” “Kentucky’s Denial of Care bill is not about religious liberty. It’s about Kentuckians’ lives,” said Nick Fish, president of American Atheists. “This dangerous bill is unconscionable, unethical, and un-American. If it becomes law, people will die.” Kentucky residents, act now to oppose this healthcare refusal bill.

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