Judge bars Obamacare from covering cancer screening and AIDS prevention, among other treatments
The same federal judge in Texas who previously ruled to strike down the affordable health care law, better known as Obamacare, struck down a limited but key part of the law Thursday that opponents of the decision say deprive millions of Americans of access to important preventive care.
The ruling by US District Judge Reed O’Connor comes more than four years after the same judge ruled that Obamacare was unconstitutional. A decision that was annulled by the Supreme Court.
No more cancer screenings or AIDS prevention for religious reasons
This ruling is likely to start another long court battle.
O’Connor blocked a requirement that insurers cover some preventive care, such as cancer screenings, by siding with the plaintiffs, who include a conservative activist in Texas and a Christian dentist who opposed mandatory coverage of contraception as well as HIV prevention treatment, the virus that causes AIDS, for religious reasons.
O’Connor wrote in his opinion that the preventive care recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force were “unlawful.”
The administration of President Joe Biden had told the court that the outcome of the case “could create extraordinary upheaval in the US public health system”. He is expected to appeal the decision.
The US Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the ruling.
In September, O’Connor ruled that mandatory coverage of the HIV prevention treatment known as PrEP, which is a pill taken daily to prevent infection, violated the plaintiffs’ religious beliefs. That decision also undermined the broader system that determines what preventive drugs are covered in the US, by ruling that the federal task force that recommends what preventive treatments should be covered is unconstitutional because it is not made up of elected officials.
Employers’ religious objections have been a sticking point in past challenges against Obamacare, including birth control drug coverage.
New attack on Obamacare by conservative activists
The Biden administration and more than 20 mostly Democratic-controlled states had urged O’Connor not to issue a sweeping ruling that would eliminate the preventive care coverage requirement altogether.
The states argued in a brief that “over the past decade, millions of Americans have relied on preventive services provisions to obtain preventive care at no cost, improving not only their own health and well-being, but also public health outcomes in general”,
The lawsuit is yet another attempt by conservative activists to undermine or eliminate the Affordable Care Act altogether, since it was signed into law in 2010.
The lawyer who filed the suit was an architect of Texas’ abortion law, which was the strictest procedural law in the country before the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional protection of abortion in the Roe decision in June. v. Wade and allow states to ban the procedure.
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Several celebrities have opened up about the pain, hopelessness, uncertainty, and more emotions and ups and downs that come with cancer.
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Play the video to meet some celebrities who have survived breast cancer.
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Cancer is challenging on its own, and it is compounded by the side effects of the treatments with which it is fought, such as chemotherapy, whose drugs usually affect the hair follicles of the scalp –where the hair grows–, which causes loss of the hair either by sections or completely.
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Before this panorama, some celebrities have ventured to show their face after hair loss and thereby give us powerful messages.
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Lorraine They deserve Instagram
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#1 Lorena Meritano The actress from ‘Pasión de Gavilanes’ has been very transparent with her fight against cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2014.
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Lorraine They deserve Instagram
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His journey with this disease was recorded in a book entitled ‘Survivor’. As well as in photographs that he has shared on social networks, several of them with his head without hair.
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Lorraine They deserve Instagram
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To these images are added the photos of her scars on her breasts, marks that were left after several surgeries that she underwent as masectomies.
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Watch the video and meet more famous people who show off their scars, amputations and more without embarrassment and pride.
Instagram Lorraine Meritano
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Sharing these photos is one way Meritano seeks to raise awareness about cancer
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Instagram Lorraine Meritano
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“Cancer destroys, makes you suffer, it is frightening but detected in time there is a chance to accept it, leave the disease to the doctors, pay attention to them and ask for help to be able to face fears, pain, loss and suffering with therapeutic tools,” he wrote in his Instagram.
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#2 Marta Guzmán In January 2022, the former host of ‘Primero Noticias’ revealed on the ‘Gossip’ program that at the end of 2021 she underwent surgery to remove a tumor from one of her breasts. After this operation she had to undergo chemotherapy.
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Almost three months after this announcement, Marta posted a photo of her without hair and explained that once the hair loss started, she lost it all in three days.
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“I said goodbye to my hair since February 15, since seeing how it fell little by little, I do not deny it, made me feel sad. I decided to shave my head when my hair began to fall out, ”she wrote in the text that accompanied the image.
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The driver also took the opportunity to share some of the symptoms she has experienced. “Skin sores, bruised nails, a sensitive white tongue, watery eyes, tiredness, hot flashes, dizziness and all the ailments you may feel, are passing so that breast cancer never returns,” she explained.
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#3 Edith González The renowned soap opera actress was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2016, a disease that unfortunately took her life in 2019.
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However, during her time fighting cancer, Edith was distinguished by her optimistic attitude and the way she embraced the changes in her body, such as showing herself hairless on red carpets and on magazine covers as ‘Who’.
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Edith González Instagram
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Given the effects of the chemo, González decided to shave her head and show off her beauty like this; since, at the time, oncological wigs were not so easily accessible, as he explained on Javier Poza’s radio program.
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Edith González Instagram
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“Oncological wigs are very expensive, they are specialized wigs and with specialized technology. My neck came to bleed because mine was a semi-oncological wig, ”she said.
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Although Edith González lost the battle against cancer, her legacy remains present in her loved ones as her daughter. Play the video and find out the message that Constanza gave that would make her late mother proud.
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#4 Rebecca Jones At the end of January 2018, the ‘Cradle of Wolves’ actress began her fight against ovarian cancer.
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Rebecca Jones
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“It is important that women know that hair, that which is very difficult for us to get rid of, which is like our headwear or our personality in many cases, should not be seen like that. You have to embrace life before any piece of hair, ”she explained for this publication.
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Jones accepted that it was hard for him to see himself without hair or eyebrows. However, the disease showed him that this was the least of it. “That doesn’t matter and when you appreciate being able to get up and that your legs still work for you, that your voice, that your senses work, I swear that hair happens last,” he said.
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#5 Shannen Doherty The ‘Charmed’ actress was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. After several treatments to avoid undergoing a mastectomy, Doherty could not avoid this operation, which was followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
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These treatments led to her suffering from hair loss, which finally convinced her to shave with the help of a friend, who managed to make the bitter pill less overwhelming.
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“Even though I’m laughing (mainly because she always makes me laugh) you can clearly see how sad I am… I will always remember this moment and my brave and loving friend who was there no matter what,” Shannen wrote on her Instagram.
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Shannen DohertyInstagram
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During his fight against cancer, Doherty shared several photos of his head without hair, like this one with which he remembered the morning of October 7, 2016, the last day of chemotherapy.