How a New Proposal Would Limit Access to Health Care for Vulnerable Youth in 200 Words

Health Equity

A new federal proposal could dramatically limit the access to and quality of health insurance for millions of children across the country. In particular, this proposal could further harm youth who already experience worse health outcomes than the general population, including LGBTQ-identifying youth and those with limited English proficiency.

The Trump administration’s proposal would make “substantial revisions” to its regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Among other restrictions, the proposed rule would:

  • Scale back protections that improve access to both written and oral language services
  • Eliminate the prohibition of discrimination based on gender identity
  • Remove the provision preventing health insurers from varying benefits in ways that discriminate against people living with HIV or LGBTQ individuals

Our own research demonstrates how harmful scaling back these protections could be for children and teens. For example, even under the current law, our work shows the challenges that trans youth and their families face when trying to obtain insurance coverage for evidence-based services the can prevent poor mental and physical health outcomes. We’ve also written about how interacting with health care providers in a language youth and families understand can make the difference between thriving and merely surviving for both immigrants and U.S. citizens with limited English proficiency.

The public is encouraged to provide formal comments on this proposal until August 13. We hope you will join us in providing our federal leaders with the evidence behind how this proposal could impact the communities we serve.


This post is part of our “____ in 200 Words” series. In this series, we tackle issues related to children’s health policy and explain and connect you to resources to help understand them further, all in 200 words. If you have any suggestions for a topic in this series, please send a note to PolicyLab’s Strategy & Communications Manager Lauren Walens.