U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Chevron Doctrine Potentially Altering Federal Health Care Regulation Processes

On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning the "Chevron Doctrine," the doctrine that effectively required judges to defer to federal agency interpretation of ambiguous federal statutes. The doctrine, which dates back to 1984, granted significant legal deference to federal agencies as they crafted regulations to implement federal laws. If a party brought a challenge to a federal court arguing that a regulation was inconsistent with its related statute, courts were expected to give deference to the "reasonable interpretation" by the agency.

With the rescinding of Chevron, courts will now have more leeway to make their own judgements on the regulations. The change could impact health care-related rules.

A formal Congressional inquiry about the Chevron ruling from U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy is here.

A Congressional Research Service (CRS) analysis of the ruling is here.