The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently issued controversial new final regulations that have potentially significant implications for employers operating in the health care space.
The so-called “conscience protection” regulations prohibit entities that receive HHS funding from discriminating against individuals on the basis of their exercise of conscience or moral objections to participating in services such as abortion, sterilization and assisted suicide, among others. When the rule was issued, nearly two dozen states and localities as well as a group of civil rights organizations had already filed lawsuits to stop the Trump Administration from enforcing the new rule.
The conscience protection regulations were originally set to go into effect July 22, 2019. On July 3, however, HHS announced that it has stipulated to delaying the effective date of the regulations until at least November 22, 2019 “in order to allow the parties [to the pending lawsuits] more time to respond to the litigation and to grant entities affected by the rule more time to prepare for compliance.”
A copy of the HHS notice delaying the effective date is available here.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC) can read more here.