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The End of Chevron Deference: Potential Impact on Health Care

On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States jettisoned the Chevron doctrine, overruling a 40-year-old case that had long served as the foundation for American administrative law.  In the consolidated opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, the Supreme Court declared that, instead of deferring to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, courts now must exercise their “independent judgment” to determine whether an agency acted within its statutory authority.  Although the Court held that Loper Bright Enterprises does “not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework,” it will still likely create waves for every federally regulated industry in the United States.  How much of an impact this decision will have will be discussed for years to come.  

This presentation will provide a short explanation of how Loper Bright has changed the legal landscape of administrative law generally, and will then focus on its potential impact specifically on some of the most important areas of health care, including, for example, the use of geographic areas for setting Medicare reimbursement; the consideration of provider costs in setting Medicaid rate reductions; calculation of the wage index for inpatient Medicare services; calculation of Disproportionate Share Hospital payments; the recent Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities rule; and the definition of “medical condition” requiring employer accommodation under Pregnant Workers Fairness Act of 2022.