Did you know that across our country, hospitals are allowed to deny care to patients? They don’t do this because they lack the necessary staff or equipment but because the hospital’s administrators do not believe in providing particular services. And to make matters worse, because information about what services hospitals deny is often impossible to obtain, patients are unable to determine whether their local hospital provides the care they need before they are admitted or spend hours, or even months, in a scheduling spiral or on stigmatizing phone calls.
It’s happening now in New York. In one instance, a Hudson Valley woman wanted to receive a tubal ligation after a c-section, which happens to be the safest time to perform that procedure. But she was told by the hospital where she gave birth that they do not “tie tubes” due to their policies. A New York City woman was actively miscarrying and left to languish in a hospital waiting room until she hemorrhaged nearly 40 percent of her blood and went into shock. Only then did the hospital complete the miscarriage to save her life. These incidents occurred over the last several years in a solidly blue state, where one might expect accountability for discriminatory behavior against vulnerable populations.
The situation could get worse. In June, the Supreme Court’s Moyle decision failed to make clear that every pregnant person in the country is entitled to the emergency care they need to protect their health and lives under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)—an ominous portent. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would eliminate the federal guidance that states EMTALA requires abortion care when it is necessary to stabilize a patient experiencing a medical emergency— even in a state with an absolute abortion ban—and would stop any federal enforcement actions against facilities that deny care.
The first Trump Administration tried to dramatically expand the ability of health care institutions to refuse to provide standard care or even information to patients based on the hospital owners’ religious beliefs. Our country now faces the prospect of a second Trump Administration that could use all of its tools to further empower facilities to refuse to provide care their patients need.
No one should ever be turned away from a hospital when they need health care, and perhaps especially when that decision is based on a stranger’s beliefs rather than medical standards of care and best practices.
There is so much that state legislatures can and should do to expand and guarantee access to health care, regardless of what the Supreme Court decides or who is in the White House. They can start with a simple building block, like New York’s Hospital Transparency bill, which is awaiting Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature.
This legislation will enable New Yorkers to find out whether their local hospital provides the care they need before they get there. Moreover, it will give New York State the tools to identify parts of the state where particular types of care are unavailable and to understand the impacts of those gaps on communities and individuals.
This measure lays the groundwork for future progress to ensure New Yorkers can access quality, comprehensive health care based on standards of care—not the whims of a bureaucrat or the religious beliefs of an executive.