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The Trump administration announced two key actions Wednesday designed to protect entities that sought to avoid supporting abortion.
Both announcements addressed longstanding issues handled by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights. In a press release Wednesday, HHS said it would block $200 million in federal Medicaid funds slated for California due to the state illegally mandating that all health care plans subject to regulation by the California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) cover abortion without exclusion or limitation.
It also said it referred a case to the Justice Department involving a nurse who was allegedly forced to assist in an elective abortion. DOJ announced on Wednesday that it would bring a suit against the University of Vermont Medical Center over the issue.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) delivered religious freedom and pro-life wins in three cases announced on Wednesday.
“Regardless of who sits in my chair as Director of the Office for Civil Rights, conscience and religious freedom should no longer be a point of debate. It is not a partisan football. It is a fundamental human right that needs to be respected. And that is what is being communicated by these actions taken today,” OCR Director Roger Severino said.
In the first case, the OCR announced that it secured access for religious clergy in New York’s Mt. Sinai Health System, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The University of Vermont Medical Center is blasting the U.S. Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights for threatening enforcement action over its abortion Conflict of Care policy.
The medical center says it has responded to correspondence from HHS this month threatening enforcement of a 2019 Notice of Violation over opt-out policies for staff and patients for abortion services.
The UVM Medical Center says it has been in compliance with federal law and remains so.
Democratic Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan says the threat is “a last ditch effort by the Trump Administration to restrict a woman’s access to abortion” and the “attack on UVM Medical Center stands on shaky legal ground at best.”
Modified: 12/17/2020 2:36:07 PM
As the first allotments of vaccines were distributed across the country this week, neighboring states broadcast who the first recipients would be.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott informed the public on Monday that 1,950 doses were split between the State Vaccine Depot and the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington to be given to front line medical workers.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services published a comprehensive list showing nearly 6,000 doses going to seven hospitals during the first week of rollout. Maine, which has a similar population as New Hampshire but is nearly four times the size in geographic area, named each facility receiving Pfizer doses. State officials announced that during the second week about 3,000 more Pfizer does would be handed out, along with 22,000 Moderna vaccine shots going to nearly every medical facility in the state.