Court adds Medicaid case to docket
Scotus news
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to take up a dispute over whether a South Carolina woman can bring a lawsuit challenging that state’s decision ending Planned Parenthood’s participation in its Medicaid program. The Supreme Court announced that it would hear arguments in Kerr v. Planned Parenthood next spring at 11 a.m. Eastern. It also set oral arguments for Jan. 10, in a pair appeals that seek to block enforcement of federal law that requires TikTok’s parent company to sell it by Jan. 19, unless it can be sold off.
The Justices granted two cases based on their Dec. 13 conference Friday afternoon, and issued additional orders from that conference (mostly denial Although the justices’ next regularly scheduled conference will not occur until next year, they have sometimes issued additional grants from their final conference of the year a few days later, just as they did on Wednesday.
Under federal law, Medicaid funds cannot generally be used to provide abortions. But Planned Parenthood provides other medical services to women, including gynecological and contraceptive care but also screenings for cancer, high blood pressure, and cholesterol.
At two clinics in Charleston and Columbia, Planned Parenthood has tried to make it easier to lower-income patients, many of whom are covered by Medicaid, to use its services – by, for example, offering same-day appointments and extended clinic hours. Julie Edwards is one of these Medicaid patients. She has diabetes. She went to Planned Parenthood to get birth control, but she says she will return in the future to receive other services. McMaster explained that the “payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.”
Edwards and Planned Parenthood went to federal court in South Carolina. The state, represented by the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, then went to the Supreme Court this summer and asked the justices to decide whether Edwards and Planned Parenthood have a legal right to sue in order enforce the Medicaid Act. That decision prompted the state – represented by the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom – to come to the Supreme Court this summer, asking the justices to decide whether Edwards and Planned Parenthood have a legal right to sue to enforce the Medicaid Act.
The state told the justices that five federal courts of appeals “have wrongly subjected states to private lawsuits Congress never intended.” Moreover, it added, with 70 million Americans receiving Medicaid benefits and tens of thousands of health-care providers participating in the program, the question at the center of the case is “of great national importance.”
But Planned Parenthood and Edwards countered that the question does not come up very often these days. The majority of cases where the question has arisen, they added, “were attempts by states to target Planned Parenthood, in ways courts have recognized as unwarranted, and politically motivated.” In any event, the justices concluded, since all three judges of the court of appeals in this case agreed, the Medicaid act is “clear, unambiguous, and conferring a private enforceable right.” The case is likely to be heard in March or April with a final decision expected by summer.
