Supreme Court says states may bar women on Medicaid from using Planned Parenthood clinics

Washington – The Supreme Court on Thursday judged that states could exclude Planned Parenthood clinics to provide medical projections and other health care for women on Medicaid.

The conservative majority of the Court has put aside the long -time rule according to which Medicaid patients can obtain medical care of any qualified supplier.

During a 6-3 vote, the judges judged that the Medicaid law does not give patients an “individual right” to the supplier of their choice.

The dispute increased against abortion, even if the federal funds could not be used to carry out abortions.

Medicaid is funded by the federal government and the States. For decades, conservative states have sought to “undo” Planned Parenthood and argued that they did not want to subsidize a leading supplier of abortions.

But until recently, the federal government and most of the courts have judged that Medicaid patients could go to any qualified supplier for health care.

The legal battle has proven to be if the Medicaid law has given patients a right that could be protected by the court. The answer was no, said judge Neil Mr. Gorsuch speaking for the majority.

The three Liberals of the Court, all women, dissident.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that the decision “would deprive the beneficiaries of Medicaid in South Carolina of their only significant means of applying a right that Congress expressly granted them. And, more concretely, he will strip these South Carolinians – and countless other recipients of Medicaid across the country – of a deeply personal freedom: the ability to decide that treats us to our most vulgères. “.

Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan accepted.

In theory, a Medicaid patient could file a complaint with the Trump administration and say to the Ministry of Health and Social Services that the State does not fully comply with the Medicaid law.

Planned Parenthood clinics provide cancer screening, birth control, medical screening, pregnancy tests, contraception and other health services.

The congress pays most state costs for Medicaid, and the law says that “any person eligible for medical assistance” can receive care of any supplier “qualified to perform the service”.

Last year, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the assertion of South Carolina that it could exclude Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program.

“We reaffirm that a beneficiary of Medicaid can … justify it under the Medicaid law to freely choose among qualified health care providers, of which Planned Parenthood is one,” wrote J. Harvie Wilkinson, an eminent conservative and a named in relation to Reagan.

But the court agreed to hear the appeal of the state in Medina against Planned Parenthood.

Lupe Rodríguez, Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, called on Thursday’s decision “an attack on our health care and our freedom to make our own decisions concerning our body and our life.

Senator Dick Durbin (D -ill.) Said that it was “yet another shameful decision that inserts the government directly between a patient and their doctor – just like Dobbs three years ago and Skrmetti last week. Intimate and personal decisions concerning health care should not require disconnecting extremist politicians. ”

The former governor of South Carolina Henry McMaster, presented in 2021, denied state Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood in 2018.

(Meg Kinnard / Associated Press)

He referred to the 2022 decision which canceled ROE against Wade and last week’s decision, confirming the laws of states which prohibit the treatment of hormones for transgender adolescents.

Carol Tobias, president of the national right to life committee, praised the monument’s decision.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court has recognized the right of states to direct the dollars of taxpayers towards health care providers affirming life,” she said. “No one should be forced to subsidize the abortion industry with their taxes.”

After the Supreme Court canceled constitutional right to abortion, South Carolina has made most of the abortions a crime. But the state continued its legal struggle to prevent Medicaid patients from receiving care in Planned Parenthood clinics in Charleston and Columbia.

Former Governor Henry McMaster, who issued Planned Parenthood in 2018, said he had done so to protect “the sovereign interests of his state”.

Critics of the decision said that the state has a serious shortage of doctors and medical staff who treat low -income patients on Medicaid.