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- Oct 11, 2017
Who's Making Your Reproductive Decisions?
Last week, the Trump Administration made it easier for your employer to make reproductive decisions for you. The Administration expanded the exemption to the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate so that an even broader range of employers can stop offering contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans if they have religious - or the more general "moral" - objections to birth control. This latest attack on our health care rights is devastating and totally unscie
- Jun 27, 2017
Immigrant Rights are Human Rights
You've seen the slogan: Immigrant rights are human rights. It's concise. It's catchy. It affirms what we believe. But when we talk about human rights—and more specifically, access to health care—what does equity actually look like for immigrants and their families? Access to health care is not just a matter of having a clinic nearby. It's about having the opportunity to seek culturally competent medical care. It's about having the ability to receive that care without fear of
- Mar 21, 2017
Challenging Daleiden: Our Continued Fight for Abortion Providers' Safety & Privacy
Legal Voice is headed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in our ongoing fight to protect the privacy and safety of our clients – a group of health care providers, clinic and hospital staff, researchers, and other people whose work involves fetal tissue. Last year, we went up against David Daleiden, the man responsible for the 2015 smear campaign against Planned Parenthood. He and Zachary Freeman of the conservative Family Policy Institute of Washington both requested publi
- Nov 18, 2016
Federal Court Restricts Public Records Request of Anti-Choice Extremists
A federal district court judge handed down an order that keeps personally identifying information of Legal Voice clients—abortion care provi
- Oct 11, 2016
Justice for Noah – and a Step Forward for Transgender Youth Health Care
Noah is a young transgender man living in Seattle. He has long known that he is male, even though he was assigned a different sex at birth. At the recommendation of his health care providers, Noah had chest reconstruction surgery to affirm his gender at age 17. Noah's mother, Maggie, has health insurance for their family from Group Health. She sought authorization for insurance coverage of the surgery, but her request was denied on the grounds that Noah had not yet turned 18.
- Jul 28, 2016
Eastern Washington Catholic Hospital Settles Transgender Discrimination Suit
We are still celebrating this month's defeat of Initiative 1515, which would have rolled back protections for transgender Washingtonians that allow them to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity. But we know that transgender people don't just face discrimination and humiliation in restrooms—they often face these same barriers when accessing health care. Over the last two years, we have made a lot of progress in fighting refusals to provide health care to transgen
- Jan 9, 2016
Legal Voice Asks Washington State Office of Insurance Commissioner to Ensure Health Care Privacy
Insurance companies sometimes inadvertently disclose information about one family member’s health care services to other family members on the same policy. In many cases, people will not use their health insurance—or will forgo seeking care at all—because of the threat that someone in their household will find out their personal medical information. This is especially true for minors, young adults still on their parents’ insurance plan, and people in domestic violence situati
- Jan 8, 2016
Legal Voice Joins Allies in Pushing Back Against Hospital Merger in Oregon
Today, Legal Voice joined 12 of our allies in urging Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum not to fast track a merger between Providence Health & Services and St. Joseph Health. The proposed transaction involves nearly 50 hospitals in six states (Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Montana, California, and Texas). The two Catholic health systems have requested a waiver from the standard process for reviewing hospital merger transactions. We have called on the AG’s office to deny th
- Nov 10, 2015
Prohibiting Discrimination in Health Care Coverage with the ACA
Everyone’s heard about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and how it has improved access to equitable health care. But did you know that the same law also contains a powerful tool to combat discrimination? Section 1557 of the ACA prohibits discrimination in health care coverage and care based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in a range of health programs. The federal Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has requested comments on its proposed new fede
- Aug 18, 2015
Winning Inclusive Medicaid Coverage in Washington State
Until recently, nearly all public and private health plans in Washington State excluded coverage for gender transition-related care. These unfair policies not only ignored evidence that transition-related care is medically necessary and life-saving for many transgender people, but they also ran afoul of laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sex. Legal Voice is proud to be a founding member of the Coalition for Inclusive Healthcare, which has worked to
- Jul 23, 2015
Court Affirms Patients' Rights, Not Pharmacists' Religious Beliefs, Come First
Today, a decade after Washington’s pharmacy rulemaking process began, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that Washington pharmacies must dispense all legal medications to patients on site, without discrimination or delay. The Court’s unanimous decision in Stormans Inc. v. Wiesman—in which an Olympia-based pharmacy and two of its pharmacists challenged the pharmacy rules, asserting that filling prescriptions for emergency contraception violated their religi
- Jul 9, 2015
WA Supreme Court Strikes Down DOH Rules on Hospital Ownership Changes
Today, in Washington State Hospital Association v. Washington State Department of Health, the WA Supreme Court held that the 2013 expansion of rules that require Department of Health approval for certain types of hospital ownership changes exceeded the agency’s authority. The “certificate of need” (CON) review process is triggered by the “sale, purchase, or lease” of a hospital, and the rule at issue defined that term more broadly, to include other transactions changing contr
- Jun 25, 2015
Upholding Health Care Access and the Affordable Care Act: King v. Burwell
Health care matters. But for most women and families, access to quality, affordable health care is dependent on access to health care insurance. So we are thrilled with this morning's 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell that upholds the availability of tax credits and subsidies in all health care exchanges established under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), regardless of whether they were established by the state or federal government. This financial assis
- Apr 27, 2015
Upholding Protections for Transgender People in Washington
This morning, in collaboration with Gender Justice—a Minnesota-based sister organization of Legal Voice and member of The Alliance—and our cooperating counsel at Keller Rohrback, we filed a lawsuit challenging CSL Plasma’s practice of prohibiting transgender individuals from donating plasma. Last June, Jasmine Kaiser went to CSL Plasma in Kent, Washington, to make a donation. The employees would not permit her to donate, and informed her that the company had placed a "lifetim
- Apr 10, 2015
Another Victory for Transgender Health Care
In the past year, we’ve made great progress in fighting discrimination in health care against transgender people in Washington. And we are excited to announce another victory for our client V.J.! V.J. is a transgender woman in her early 20s. After years of counseling and hormone therapy, her health care providers agreed that sex reassignment surgery was a medically necessary treatment. But when she sought coverage for the surgery under her health plan from Sound Health & Well
- Nov 20, 2014
Back in Court: Our Decade-Long Fight for Patients' Access to Pharmacy Care
After nearly a decade, our case involving pharmacists' refusal to fill contraception prescriptions, Stormans v. Wiesman (formerly Stormans v. Selecky), is finally being heard on its merits before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Tomorrow, we will defend the rules requiring pharmacies to fill legal prescriptions without discrimination and without delay. At stake is more than just Washington's pharmacy rules, but potentially the rights of corporations to evade compliance wit
- Jul 31, 2014
Another Step Forward for Transgender Health Benefits
Washington’s Public Employees Benefits Board (PEBB) voted unanimously to provide inclusive health benefits for transgender people covered by PEBB plans. The board approved providing coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria, a well-recognized medical condition in which the sex a person is assigned at birth does not match the gender they know themselves to be. Plans will cover non-surgical services to treat gender dysphoria by January 1, 2015, with coverage for surgical servi
- Jun 25, 2014
A Victory for Transgender Equality in Washington!
Legal Voice, our partners in the Coalition for Inclusive Healthcare, and transgender Washingtonians won an important victory today when Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler made an announcement clarifying that health insurance policies sold in Washington State cannot discriminate against transgender people. Though insurance discrimination based on gender identity has been banned in Washington since 2006, private health insurance policies routinely include cla