Fighting for the health care system of our future.

The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation’s (CHLPI’s) Health Care Access and Coverage portfolio seeks to ensure that individuals with lower incomes can access the care and treatment they need to live their lives to the fullest. CHLPI’s work in this area broadly focuses on filling the gaps in our fragmented health care system while working towards a more equitable solution for the future.

At the national level, we monitor and analyze health law and policy proposals from the executive and legislative branches and assess their likely impact, particularly on systemically marginalized communities and people living with chronic illness. We lead the development and implementation of strategic responses, often in concert with national coalitions and networks. At the state and regional levels, CHLPI provides training and technical assistance to a range of stakeholders and monitors the private insurance marketplaces for key coverage and cost trends. Across this portfolio, we build the capacity of HIV and other health care advocates and communities to ensure that all stakeholders have the tools necessary to inform health policy that impacts access to care.

The Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) are the conditions affecting how people are born, grow, work, live, and age such as food access, housing, employment, and education as well as economic policy, social norms, and political systems. Research has shown that these factors account for approximately 30-55% of health outcomes and drive unparalleled health inequity in the United States. Despite the impact of the SDOH, our traditional health care system has not been designed to address a community’s underlying social and economic conditions nor the resulting health-related social needs such as individual access to food, shelter, employment, or transportation.

CHLPI works to reform the U.S. health care system to address the social determinants of health and health-related social needs, improve health equity, and mitigate health disparities. We work to realize a coordinated system of comprehensive care that recognizes the foundational role of social determinants of health in improving health outcomes, shaping individual and community experiences of health care, and reducing health care costs. CHLPI explores, analyzes, and nurtures innovations that address social determinants of health, and examines the legal, regulatory, and policy implications of integrating these interventions into health care delivery and financing.

When health care rights are on the line, we fight discrimination through impact litigation, both by representing clients directly, and by playing a supporting role in the work of other advocates. Through CHLPI’s Health Care Rights Enforcement focus area, we are engaged in a number of court cases affecting access to hepatitis C treatment, transgender and gender-affirming health care rights, and mental health parity. We litigate on behalf of people who are chronically ill and of groups of health care consumers affected by discrimination in these areas. Additionally, CHLPI has a robust amicus brief writing program that aims to supply courts with background information they need to make decisions about critical access to care and anti-discrimination issues.