‘Chaotic’ Health Care Rulemaking Looms After Supreme Court Hamstrings Federal Agencies

On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court in two rulings eliminated a longstanding legal precedent that has protected regulations issued by federal agencies from a broad swath of legal challenges. Attorneys say rulemaking in health care will become more unpredictable as regulations are challenged — which could cost health plans, providers, and patients.

In their rulings in Relentless v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court did away with “Chevron deference,” a legal concept that is over 40 years old. Chevron deference granted agencies the legal benefit of the doubt when they issued regulations that clarified parts of statute that Congress had left ambiguous. The premise behind the concept was that agency staff have subject matter expertise that Congress is unlikely to share, and that Congress couldn’t be expected to continually update statutes in order to address every emerging issue of importance to a specific sector of the economy.