H.1180/S.753: An Act Relative to Preventing Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities in the Provision of Health Care

Lead Sponsors: Rep. Josh Cutler, Sen. Adam Gomez

Status Update: Currently in Committee on Health Care Financing

People with disabilities are frequently the victims of explicit and implicit bias in the healthcare system, often with harmful and even deadly consequences. Some disabled patients have been denied treatments, medications, and even removed from life support, while others report being pressured to sign Do Not Resuscitate orders–all based on the presumption that the lives of people with disabilities have less worth and are less worth saving than the lives of people without disabilities. During the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, our own state government took the same approach, adopting Crisis Standards of Care that would have sent thousands of people with disabilities to the back of the line for lifesaving ventilators and ICU beds.

H.1180/S.753 protects people with disabilities from life-threatening discrimination in our healthcare system. It prohibits any healthcare entity from denying or deprioritizing a patient for a healthcare service based on the presumption that their disability makes their life less worthwhile. It puts critical protections in place to prevent disabled patients from being pressured to sign Do Not Resuscitate Orders, and it ensures that decisions about the cost-effectiveness of treatments do not use discriminatory metrics. Finally, it would ensure that, in any future public health crisis, the rules that dictate who gets access to lifesaving care do not discriminate against people with disabilities.

For more information, contact Colin Killick at ckillick@dpcma.org or 1 (617) 993-6562.