Health Care

The administration announced the HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy Monday, which prohibits disclosing a patient’s reproductive health care information, even if they travel across state lines for care. The rule is aimed at preventing medical records from being used “to conduct an investigation into or impose liability on any person for merely seeking, obtaining, providing or facilitating lawful reproductive health care, including abortion,” Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of the Office for Civil Rights, said.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday on a case that could restrict access to abortion pills nationwide. The justices are weighing whether to limit the availability of mifepristone, a drug used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions. This is the high court’s first case on abortion since overturning Roe v. Wade two years ago.

Vice President Kamala Harris toured an abortion provider on Thursday — something no president or vice president has done before. After her tour of a Minnesota Planned Parenthood, Harris criticized Republicans for passing laws to deny access to reproductive health care.

Gov. Katie Hobbs announced plans Monday to use up to $30 million in federal coronavirus relief funding to erase Arizonans’ medical debt. Those living at or under 400% of the federal poverty level or whose bills amount to 5% or more of their annual income would be eligible for the debt relief, per the Arizona Republic.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s attempt to get her bill protecting IVF passed via unanimous consent was blocked by Senate Republicans this afternoon. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith objected to the bill, saying it went beyond IVF.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the state Supreme Court was right to rule that embryos are “children” and people could be held liable for the accidental destruction of them. “That’s a situation that you never would really think about,” he told Semafor’s David Weigel. “But when you start hearing about that, you’ve got to say — wait a minute. That can’t be happening.” Asked about the implications for in vitro fertilization, Tuberville said: “I don’t know enough about how that works.” Two fertility clinics in Alabama have paused IVF treatments out of legal concerns.

Alabama Fertility Specialists has paused in vitro fertilization treatments “due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists,” the clinic posted on Facebook. This is the second clinic in the state, after the health system at University of Alabama at Birmingham, to put a hold on IVF in light of the state Supreme Court ruling that embryos are “children” and people can be held liable for destroying them.

The next big abortion case is coming to the Supreme Court this spring, with arguments over access to and FDA approval of mifepristone.

The Biden administration is touting record high enrollment in the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces with more than 21.3 million people signed up. It’s been almost eight years since Republicans tried and failed to repeal the program under Donald Trump. “The American people have made it clear. They don’t want the Affordable Care Act weakened,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in the briefing room Wednesday. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to call for its repeal.

Overriding GOP Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto, state Republican lawmakers voted to enact a law that bans transgender minors from receiving gender-affirming surgeries, hormone therapies and restricts access to mental health care for transgender youth. It also bans transgender women from playing on women’s sports teams from kindergarten through the collegiate level. The law is expected to take effect in 90 days.