Nationwide Lawsuit Challenges Kaiser's Hearing Aid Exclusion as Illegal Disability Discrimination

    SEATTLE, WA, December 20, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Jason Delessert, a Burien Washington resident with hearing loss has filed a nationwide class action lawsuit to challenge Kaiser's Hearing Aid Exclusion. This is the first nationwide class action lawsuit to bring a disability discrimination claim under the Affordable Care Act ("ACA") on behalf of hearing disabled enrollees who need prescription hearing aids. It follows an earlier case, Schmitt v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington, which challenged similar exclusions on behalf of Washington-only insureds. The Schmitt case settled, but did not include Mr. Delessert in the settlement.

"I need prescription hearing aids all day long, to communicate, work, socialize – in essence to safely and fully live my life. They are as necessary for me as a wheelchair is for someone with a mobility disability. Yet Kaiser refuses to cover them as 'durable medical equipment' under my health plan," said Mr. Delessert. "This is discrimination, pure and simple. Other enrollees have coverage for durable medical equipment to treat their diagnosed health conditions, but enrollees diagnosed with disabling hearing loss do not."

"Prescription hearing aids only treat hearing disabilities. An exclusion of prescription hearing aids is, in reality, aimed solely at people with hearing disabilities. This is illegal discrimination, and Kaiser knows it," said Eleanor Hamburger, of Sirianni Youtz Spoonemore Hamburger PLLC, one of the attorneys for Mr. Delessert.

Under the ACA, Kaiser has an "affirmative obligation not to discriminate in the provision of health care—in particular to consider the needs of disabled people and not design plan benefits in ways that discriminate against them." Schmitt v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan of Wash., 965 F.3d 945, 955 (2020). Despite the Schmitt court ruling four years ago, Kaiser continues to apply a categorical hearing aid exclusion in Mr. Delessert's health plan as well as many others across the country.

"Hearing aid exclusions are based on the historic discrimination against disabled people by the health insurance industry," said Anna Prakash of Nichols Kaster, one of Mr. Delessert's attorneys. "The ACA was designed to end such discrimination, including against enrollees with hearing disabilities. This lawsuit seeks to make sure Kaiser ends its discriminatory practices now."

For more information about litigation seeking coverage of hearing aids, go to: https://www.symslaw.com/kaiserhearingaids and https://www.symslaw.com/hearinglosslitigation.

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