Dear John,

Extremists want a world where you could be denied medical care because of how you look, who you love, the languages you speak, the type of care you need, and/or biased assumptions made about you by a health care provider. However, Congress gave us a right to fight against such discrimination through a part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) known as Section 1557. Yet from the moment the ACA became law, extremists have tried to take away our right to health care, including giving hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and more a license to discriminate and refuse care to patients. Here’s what you need to know:

• What is ACA Section 1557: It is a foundational right to health care without discrimination. 1557 prohibits discrimination in health care based on factors like race, ethnicity, and sex, including pregnancy and gender identity. Examples include:
  • a Black woman’s pain being ignored because of racial and gender stereotypes,
  • a provider refusing to treat an immigrant patient because English isn’t her first language and she previously had an abortion,
  • or a trans person being told they cannot get a prescription for strep because the provider doesn’t treat trans patients.
• Attacks on 1557: From the moment the ACA became federal law, extremists have been using every tool to take away our right to health care without discrimination—from attacking 1557 in the courts to the Trump administration gutting its protections.
• A new Biden administration rule: The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new rule in 2022 to restore and strengthen 1557’s protections against discrimination in health care. The National Women’s Law Center galvanized our supporters—including you—to submit over 6,000 comments in 2022 to improve the initial draft rule in hopes of fully overriding what the Trump administration did. The finalized rule will be released any day now, and while we don’t know exactly what it will say, we do know it will likely come under attack.

Extremists have made it clear they won’t stop with Section 1557. These aren’t isolated attacks—from dismantling the constitutional right to abortion to stripping away protections for survivors and LGBTQIA+ students in Title IX, extremists will continue chipping away at our rights to health care, equity in schools, decisions about our bodies, all while trying to undo critical victories of previous generations. But the National Women’s Law Center will be ready to fight back against every attack on our rights.

We’ll keep you updated when the finalized rule is released. Thank you for being with us in this fight!

In solidarity,

Dorianne Mason
she/her/hers
Director of Health Equity
National Women's Law Center