Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in NBC News, in “By Maintaining Obamacare Pillar, Supreme Court Hands Win to HIV Advocates” by Benjamin Ryan.
Following is an excerpt:
The Supreme Court on Friday granted the HIV-prevention field a historic win — yet with a major caveat — as it upheld a federally appointed health task force’s authority to mandate no-cost insurance coverage of certain preventive interventions, but clarifying that the health and human services secretary holds dominion over the panel. ...
The ruling “is a victory in the sense that it leaves intact the requirement to cover task-force recommendations,” said attorney Richard Hughes, a partner with Epstein Becker Green in Washington, D.C., who represented a group of HIV advocacy organizations in submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. “It was always going to be a double-edged sword, as the political accountability that salvaged its authority comes with the ability to alter its recommendations.”
The U.S. has secured only a modest decline recently in HIV cases, and HIV advocates stand at a crossroads amid the Trump administration’s dramatic withdrawal of support for their cause. …
