In a highly anticipated ruling with far-reaching implications nationally, the US Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that states can withhold Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood, even when patients are denied access to non-abortion-related healthcare services such as cancer screenings, birth control and pregnancy tests, according to a report published by The Associated Press on Thursday.
Patients Can’t Sue to Enforce Doctor Choice, Court Rules
The 6-3 decision, penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, stated that while patients have the right to choose their healthcare provider under Medicaid, such a choice cannot be enforced by lawsuits, the report said. “Deciding whether to allow private enforcement raises sensitive questions of policy with competing costs and benefits — matters for elected representatives, not judges,” Gorsuch wrote, per the AP.
According to the report, majority opinion shuts down a major legal avenue that Planned Parenthood and its patients had employed in fighting state funding bans — patient-initiated lawsuits. Medicaid patients can no longer directly sue states if they are not granted access to their chosen provider, the report said.
South Carolina Case at the Heart of the SC Ruling
The case has its roots in South Carolina, where Republican Governor Henry McMaster started lobbying to discontinue Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood in 2018, as reported by the AP. That push was halted by a lawsuit from Julie Edwards, a patient who was reportedly using the provider as her source of birth control since pregnancy would pose a risk to her health due to her diabetic condition.
However, the Supreme Court agreed with the state’s contention that such lawsuits could not be permitted.
“Seven years ago, we stood to uphold the sanctity of life and defend the authority and values of South Carolina and today, we are at last triumphant,” McMaster said in a statement after the ruling, according to the US-based news agency.
Dissenting Judges Warn of Real Harm to Vulnerable Patients
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, along with the court’s two other liberal members, expressed dissent, the report said. “It will deprive those South Carolinians and millions of other Medicaid beneficiaries, all across the United States, of a deeply personal freedom: the ‘ability to choose who cares for us at our most vulnerable,'” AP quoted her as saying.
Public health organisations such as the American Cancer Society submitted briefs cautioning that litigation has been the sole means that Medicaid patients have to assert their right to choose a provider. To be denied access to that option, they say, would particularly damage individuals in rural and underserved communities.
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