Plans to ration medical care known as Crisis Standards of Care (CSCs) are used to decide who is prioritized for treatment during times of scarcity, such as during the pandemic. These plans can often be rooted in negative biases and inaccurate assumptions about the value of someone’s life. Justice in Aging joined a coalition of civil rights groups and legal scholars in authoring a new report on how CSCs may perpetuate medical discrimination against people with disabilities, older adults, higher weight people, and Black, Indigenous, Latino/a, Asian American, and other people of color. The report, Examining How Crisis Standards of Care May Lead to Intersectional Medical Discrimination Against COVID-19 Patients, provides an explanation of crisis standards of care policies implemented by states and hospital systems and how they may discriminate against marginalized individuals and communities. The report also shares principles that should apply to prevent discrimination, the relevant civil rights legal framework, and recommended strategies to ensure that crisis standards do not discriminate during the pandemic or in the future. |
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