10mo ago

Biden administration restores protections for gay and transgender Americans seeking health care

www.cnn.com Biden administration restores protections for gay and transgender Americans seeking health care | CNN Politics

The Biden administration announced a new rule Friday expanding safeguards against potential discrimination of gay and transgender Americans seeking medical care, in a reversal of Trump-era limitations that nixed federal health protections for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

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Wilshire @lemmy.world

10mo ago

Biden administration restores protections for gay and transgender Americans seeking health care

www.cnn.com /2024/04/27/politics/lgbtq-health-care-biden-administration-rules-affordable-care-act/index.html

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Wonderful news. It should also be noted that it took Biden almost a whole election cycle to reverse Trump era decisions.
- First of all, it's not like Biden sat down and wrote these himself. Appointees by Biden at the health and human service administration directed these rules be written by civil servants who work at the department. Changes to regulations have to follow the processes laid out in the laws originally passed by congress giving the agency the authority to write that regulation. Usually that involves a long process of research, mandatory waiting periods, comments, legal reviews, votes by administrators, etc. These new rules began to be drafted in January 2022. Here's all about 600 pages of them. It's not something like, Biden rolled out of bed this morning and decided to reverse lgbtq discrimination in healthcare finally to help himself in the election. The rule this is replacing/updating for instance had work on it begin in 2015 that didn't finish until 2020.
  If the complex processes for these new regulations aren't followed then they aren't drawing their power from any law, and they'll be struck down by courts in a heartbeat. This happened to a lot of Trump's incompetent administrators who had a lot of hastily passed or incorrectly passed regulations that didn't survive legal review.
  https://www.vox.com/2021/1/19/22239074/affordable-clean-energy-rule-vacated-trump-court-climate-change-obama-biden
  
  This is something people often do not realize. Proper process is slow and nothing for sure works UNTIL it gets challenged. A law could be on the books for 50 years but it might as well have been passed yesterday if they are enacting it for the first time. Until someone is actually effected it's basically inert... and establishing precedent can be a fucking mess.
  Creating a law with teeth that can not be easily challenged for poor phrasing, unintended exemptions or loopholes takes time. If a law is written that doesn't correctly follow the correct proceedure for it's original implementation it can turn out to be the legal equivalent of a temporary tattoo.
  That was kind of the only saving grace of the Trump presidency- he is incredibly shit at working inside the law. When people bang on about "How good he was on economic affairs" they don't realize how all of his international trading stunts only lasted as long as the court preparations to refute them. Him passing his tariffs and "winning" on trade deals was big press but those deals being dismantled and damages being sought barely made the papers.
  It wasn't like the US's international court lawyers didn't try and defend those deals under Biden. They really tried. But when what you defend is hastily scribed garbage legislation made as a political stunt you're fucked.
  
  Alright, vote for a dictator that makes their own laws out of thin air then and disregards any courts. Or go after congress to change laws so that new regulations under those laws can be made faster and with less oversight, though that would backfire during republican administrations. Or just keep shouting bad faith arguments to attack a presidential administration you apparently agree with on this issue I guess. Because he very quickly reversed any executive orders he could of Trump's on this issue. Here's an order from 2021 on this actual issue.
  https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/biden-issues-executive-order-expanding-lgbtq-nondiscrimination-protections-n1255165
  Reversing actual agency regulations is unfortunately a longer process that is very dependent the specific law, but that was kicked off as soon as his appointees got in place. The new admin did get the regulations changed back in faster time than it took Trump to impose them.
  
  Alright, vote for a dictator that makes their own laws out of thin air then and disregards any courts
  Why is this literally the first alternative?
  
  Because that's the only real current alternative because of FPTP. You want real change? Start working on STAR voting.
  
  Doing it now for election cycle "freshness" is cynical at best. Absurdity. Like I said, great that it is back to being law, but for those that need care: care takes months of planning, visits, scheduling, more planning. And you can bet your ass that the Republicans will reverse this very fast. You can defend the executive Department of Health changes, I will. I will absolutely not defend the snails pace for political jockeying.
- it took Biden almost a whole election cycle to reverse Trump era decisions.
  Do you think Congress (negotiations, etc.) had anything to do with that delay?
  _Anti _{Commercial-AI} _license _(CC _BY-NC-SA _4.0)
  
  Not when it’s not a change that came through Congress.
  
  Do you think Congress (negotiations, etc.) had anything to do with that delay?
  Not when it’s not a change that came through Congress.
  All things being equal, Presidents usually try to work with Congress first, and then go around them second.
  _Anti _{Commercial-AI} _license _(CC _BY-NC-SA _4.0)
  
  That did not one bit of good for any trans people denied healthcare in the past 3 years, but at least the dignity of the office of president is intact. 🙄 Who knows, with this rule in place trans people might get four whole years of having the legal right to access nondiscriminatory medical care before a Republican gets elected or SCOTUS decides our right to exist is up to the states!
  Is it better than nothing? Sure! Am I old enough to remember this song and dance with gay rights up until the early ‘10s and this literal exact thing happening right at the end of the Obama administration? Also yes!! Do not try to sell me on this executive order being bigger and stronger than it is.
- Saved it for now so it'd be fresh in voter's minds ... which I kind of understand from a 24 hour new cycle standpoint, but from a humanity standpoint it sucks.
  
  They've been doing stuff like this non-stop since he was elected. It just takes time, especially when you're trying to do things right instead of just breaking shit, plus there's tons of obstruction you need to deal with and many appointed positions last more than a term so you need to Wait for new positions to open up to get a majority on a lot of boards. If you want to make this argument the burden of proof is on you to check that they didn't have hurdles that prevented them from doing it sooner.
  
  It takes more time to enact legislation than to repeal it. Biden’s barely made a dent in the 111 climate regulations Trump repealed. He single-handedly brought our climate policy back a decade.
  
  Let the materialist needs of the people wait and suffer and die for the end of election cycle "freshness". US politics straight up suck.

35 comments