Labor & Employment Law: Vermont and Federal Legislative Update
#WorkforceWednesday: SCOTUS Decision on LGBTQ Employees, EEOC on Older Workers Returning to Work - Employment Law This Week®
On Wednesday, June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, directly addressing the constitutionality of state laws banning gender-affirming care for...more
In a move with potentially significant implications for entities subject to the Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has reversed course and now contends that Section 1557 of the Affordable...more
Access to quality healthcare services has long been a priority of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) this agency has, since at least 2001, sought to provide...more
We are pleased to present our annual End of Year Plan Sponsor “To Do” Lists. This year, we present our “To Do” Lists in four separate SW Benefits Updates. This Part 1 covers year-end health and welfare plan issues. Parts 2,...more
As the temperatures continue to rise, regulations and litigation related to employer-sponsored group health plans have followed suit. As these new rules continue to evolve, we are often asked whether a self-insured group...more
Our April 9 blog post highlighted several issues to watch during 2024, one of which was gender-affirming care considerations. Just over a month later, there have now been three key developments with respect to that issue:...more
And opens up a can of worms. In June 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (or, to be more precise, EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows, a Democrat*) issued non-binding guidance about LGBT workers. ...more
Since it was enacted in 2010, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“Section 1557”) has prohibited discrimination in covered health programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, or...more
Senate Scrambles Ahead of Summer Escape. While members of the U.S. House of Representatives returned home for the August congressional recess, the U.S. Senate remained in Washington, D.C., this week to wrap up some...more
On August 4, 2022, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM or proposed rule) to reinterpret section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which prohibits...more
On July 25, 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a long-awaited proposed rule on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the nondiscrimination protections...more
Last year has seen big changes in the workplace for LGBTQ employees. First, there was the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which interpreted Title VII as protecting gay and transgender...more
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday it now interprets—and will enforce—Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,...more
A federal court ruling staying key parts of new Affordable Care Act (ACA) regulations in light of the landmark Supreme Court of the United States ruling on sexual orientation and gender identity will provide little certainty...more
Report on Medicare Compliance 29, no. 30 (August 24, 2020) - A federal court on Aug. 17 blocked HHS from enforcing its revised definition of sex discrimination in Sec. 1557, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York blocked federal rules seeking to remove nondiscrimination protections for health care patients. The blocked rules would have removed protections against...more
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has blocked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from enforcing a new rule that limited sex discrimination in healthcare to discrimination based...more
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act prohibits health programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. ...more
Most employer-sponsored health plans will be exempt from the primary Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision governing race, color, age, sex, disability, and national origin discrimination under new final rules issued by the U.S....more
On June 15, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia. At issue in Bostock was whether an employer could fire an employee for being gay or transgender without...more