Today, the County of Cook, which includes Cook County Health, joined the State of Illinois, the City of Chicago, and many other states and jurisdictions as plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit that challenges newly published regulations issued by the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services titled Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care; Delegations of Authority. This would radically shift the focus of health care in this country from one based on the care of patients to a system that would permit individual health care workers the right to deny timely, lawful and/or medically necessary treatment, services and even information to patients based upon the employee’s personal views. If allowed to stand, the regulations would improperly interfere with the ability of health care institutions to provide the requested care and treatment to their patients.  The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, highlights the many ways in which the regulations are an improper and illegal exercise of executive authority, including that the requirements exceed the authority granted by Congress, the regulations violate federal law, including the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid and Medicare, and the regulations violate protections contained within the United States Constitution.