09/02/2026
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For nearly 50 years, federal Section 504 regulations have included protections intended to ensure that people with disabilities can receive services in integrated settings rather than being unnecessarily segregated or institutionalized.
On August 31, the federal government joined Texas, Florida and Alaska in asking a federal judge to vacate HHS’s community-integration regulations.
If the judge approves the proposed settlement in Texas v. Kennedy, HHS’s Section 504 integration regulation will be vacated including the provision explicitly protecting people whose loss of community-based services places them at serious risk of institutionalization.
What does that mean for families?
Imagine your family member receives Medicaid waiver services that allow them to live safely at home. The state reduces those services so significantly that remaining at home may no longer be possible.
Until now, HHS has had an explicit Section 504 regulation saying that an HHS-funded program can violate federal disability protections when the way it designs, funds or provides services results in unnecessary institutionalization or places someone at serious risk of it.
That is the regulatory protection HHS has now agreed should be vacated.
This does not mean Olmstead has been overturned. It has not. The ADA and Section 504 remain federal law, and existing court precedent does not disappear.
But there is an enormous difference between having a right and having the federal government actively enforce that right.
People with disabilities may increasingly have to turn to appeals, disability-rights organizations and the courts to enforce community-integration rights that federal agencies previously helped protect.
The proposed settlement still requires the judge’s approval.
The right remains. The federal protection is retreating.
