The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Medicaid recipient can’t sue a state official for prohibiting Medicaid benefits from going to Planned Parenthood in a dispute out of South Carolina.
The 6-3 decision clears the way for states to bar Medicaid funds from going to the nation’s leading abortion provider and will likely have a widespread impact in red states.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch authored the majority opinion, reasoning the contract for Medicaid funding is between the federal government and the state, not giving individuals federal rights over those benefits.
“Private enforcement does not always benefit the public, not least because it requires States to divert money and attention away from social services and toward litigation,” the Trump appointee wrote. “And balancing those costs and benefits poses a question of public policy that, under our system of government, only Congress may answer.”
He was joined by the court’s other GOP appointees.
The dissent, authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both Obama appointees, said South Carolina asked the justices to carve out an exception so it can’t be sued for violating civil rights of Medicaid recipients.
“One of the conditions that the Medicaid Act imposes on participating States is the requirement that Medicaid recipients be able to choose their own healthcare providers without government interference,” the Biden appointee wrote.
The dispute before the justices involved South Carolina’s 2018 move to eliminate Medicaid dollars from going to abortion clinics.
Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, with offices in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, along with a Medicaid client, challenged the state’s decision under the Medicaid Act. They said the law gives Medicaid recipients the ability to choose their providers.
A lower court sided with Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Under the Medicaid Act, the provision at issue said plans must allow “any individual eligible for medical assistance” to obtain “assistance from any [provider] qualified to perform the service … who undertakes to provide,” according to court filings.
South Carolina argued that the state secretary has discretion to decide who is a qualified provider since that’s not defined in the Medicaid Act.
Other states tried to do the same, and lower courts delivered mixed results, with two siding with the states and five siding with Planned Parenthood.
The case is Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.
