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The case challenged South Carolina’s attempt to exclude Planned Parenthood clinics from its state Medicaid program.
Supreme Court justices voted 6-3 in a decision released Thursday that prevents Planned Parenthood from legally challenging South Carolina over the state’s termination of the organization’s Medicaid funding because it provides abortions. That means that states can cut Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.
The conservative majority ruled that Medicaid laws don't give an "unambiguous right" to bring a federal civil rights lawsuit to challenge terminating Planned Parenthood from the program.
Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic challenged South Carolina’s attempt to exclude Planned Parenthood clinics from its state Medicaid program.
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Many queer people rely on Planned Parenthood health care clinics for services from STI testing, cancer screenings, to reproductive health care. Many queer people are also on Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income Americans.
"Medicaid is the largest source of insurance for pregnant people in the country, and most people who get health care at Planned Parenthood clinics also rely on it," the 19th reports. "In South Carolina, almost 60 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries are people of color. About 400,000 are women between the ages of 15 and 44."
At the center of the case was whether Medicaid beneficiaries can sue to enforce their “free choice of provider” right as outlined in the Medicaid Act. It involves executive orders issued in 2018 by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, that said Planned Parenthood clinics were not qualified providers under Medicaid, a joint federal-state program to cover health care for low-income people. Lower courts blocked those orders, so the state appealed to the Supreme Court.
During oral arguments in April, “the question before the Supreme Court was whether individuals can go to court at all to vindicate their right to choose their doctors under the Medicaid law,” NPR reports. John Bursch, the lawyer representing South Carolina, said there is no such right, because the word “right” doesn’t appear in the law that established Medicaid.
Justice Kagan could not agree less. “The state has an obligation to ensure that a person — I don’t even know how to say this — without saying ‘right’ — has the right to choose their doctor,” she said. She noted that the law had been amended to assure this choice.
Even conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed some skepticism about the state’s argument. If she couldn’t sue to get access to the provider she desired, “you’re depriving me of my ability … to see the provider of my choice,” she said. However, she still joined the majority in the decision.
In a statement after the ruling, the Human Rights Campaign said the decision "unnecessarily restricts access to essential and necessary healthcare for thousands of Americans, including the many members of the LGBTQ+ community who rely on Medicaid coverage and Planned Parenthood clinics to receive the services and resources they need to be safe and healthy– including cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment and reproductive healthcare."
Its president, Kelly Robinson, said that where a patient gets their health care should not be the decision of a politician. She added that the court's ruling will be harmful to many Americans and called it "cruel."
She also pointed to the impact on LGBTQ+ people in the U.S.
“This decision is especially alarming for LGBTQ+ people, women and people of color — communities who already face healthcare discrimination and heightened barriers to income equality — especially as the Trump Administration continues their 360-degree assault on our ability to access the care we need,” she said.
