What Does The End Of Chevron Deference Mean For Healthcare?
In an expected move, the Supreme Court ruled that the so-called 1984 Chevron deference under the nations’ regulatory system is no more. It has now thrown the Supreme Court precedent out. It is a technically complex ruling that has major implications for policymaking throughout government. Chevron was not a precedent just for healthcare agencies but applied to every executive department and agency out there – defense, environment, health, commerce, consumer protection and more. The decision split along rather pure ideological grounds, with six more conservative justices lining up against three more liberal ones. The Chevron doctrine said that courts must give deference to reasonable interpretations of regulations issued by regulatory agencies that may be in part based on laws that are ambiguous. In essence, regulators had reasonably wide discretion to interpret what these ambiguous parts of a law meant and if so, how a law might be implemented. Proponents think that Chevron
