Health Care Reform

The Leadership Conference works to build an America that is as good as its ideals, and toward this end, supports the authority of Congress to enact legislation, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which increases Americans’ access to quality health care. Access to quality health care is a fundamental civil and human right, but the current system of health care in the U.S. denies this right to the most vulnerable segments of society, including low-income families, people of color, women, seniors, and people with disabilities. By addressing the huge disparities in both access to and quality of care, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes a momentous step toward ensuring that all Americans can benefit from affordable, high-quality health care.

Factsheets on Health Care Disparities Facing Racial and Ethnic Minorities

Amicus Briefs in Support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

The Leadership Conference has joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing that the minimum coverage provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is clearly constitutional and, in fact, advances equal opportunity and liberty for millions of disadvantaged Americans.
The Leadership Conference has also signed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Medicaid Expansion Provision of the Affordable Care Act . The brief outlines U.S. obligations under international treaties to address disparities in both access to and quality of coverage and care. In its statement of interest, The Leadership Conference said the Medicaid Expansion Provision “will lead to broader access to quality health care by the most vulnerable segments of society, including children, people of color, women, seniors, and people with disabilities.”
The National Women’s Law Center brief "on behalf of 60 organizations in United States Department of Health and Human Services, et al v. State of Florida, et al. The brief explains what’s at stake for women in the challenge to the new health care law and why the ACA, in correcting fundamental gender inequities in the health insurance and health care markets, is an appropriate exercise of federal Commerce Clause authority and therefore is constitutional."
The Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum et. al. brief in support of the arugment that the Court should sever the minimum coverage provision and leave the remainder of the Affordable Care Act intact if the Court finds the provision unconstitutional.
National Health Law Program et. al. brief in support of the Medicaid Expansion Provision of the Affordable Care Act