SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH; March 3, 2026 – Do No Harm filed two complaints with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against Kaiser Permanente and CommUnityCare for operating race-based patient programs that violate multiple federal anti-discrimination laws.
Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest private not-for-profit healthcare organization, runs the “Center for Black Health and Wellness,” an “equity in action” program meant to provide primary healthcare to black patients and “even out” alleged health disparities between black and white individuals. The center’s inherently discriminatory mission, coupled with its name (which makes clear an explicit racial preference for black patients), communicates to members of other racial groups that they are unwelcome. Kaiser Permanente’s operation of the center violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.
CommUnityCare, based in Austin, Texas, operates a “Black Men’s Health Clinic,” which is similarly designed to discriminate on the basis of race. As one of the state’s largest Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), CommUnityCare receives a host of federally allotted benefits and is subject to multiple federal anti-discrimination laws including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which forbid discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, and national origin.
In illegally singling out individuals for healthcare services based on race, both programs are premised on the pernicious stereotype that individuals of the same racial group are all the same—that one’s race says all the doctor needs to know about that person’s medical needs.
“Not only are medical providers like Kaiser and CommUnityCare flouting federal law, but they are also intentionally creating wider disparities in care among patient groups,” said Kurt Miceli, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Do No Harm. “Separating patient care based on race is illegal, immoral by nature, and deprioritizes high quality care in favor of identity-based care. We filed these complaints because the healthcare industry must stop the practice of racial discrimination.”
In addition to discriminating against patients based on race, Do No Harm’s complaints point to other disturbing indications that both clinics prioritize hiring black providers based on the myth of the benefits of racial concordance, which falsely claims patient care is better when provided by a doctor of the same race. Do No Harm has shown that the weight of evidence does not support the notion that racial concordance improves health outcomes.
Read the complaint against Kaiser Permanente and the complaint against CommUnityCare.
Do No Harm, established in April 2022, has rapidly gained recognition and made significant strides in its mission to safeguard healthcare from ideological threats. It has over 50,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and 14 countries.
