Ejecting Planned Parenthood From Medicaid

Wall Street Journal

9 hours ago

South Carolina's effort to stop its Medicaid program from funding Planned Parenthood has been tied up in the courts for years, but on Thursday the Supreme Court gave the state a big win. In a 6-3 ruling, the Justices said the federal Medicaid law doesn't create an 'enforceable right' that Planned Parenthood or its patients can sue to vindicate.
The Medicaid statute says states must let recipients get care from any 'qualified' provider, though it doesn't define that term. South Carolina's Governor issued an order in 2018 to deem abortion providers unqualified. '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,' he said.
Planned Parenthood sued, along with one of its Medicaid patients, Julie Edwards, who was seeking birth control and routine services. But as Justice Neil Gorsuch writes for the Court's six conservatives in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, Congress can put conditions on federal funding, such as for Medicaid, without creating any 'right' for private citizens to enforce those terms in court.
'Though it is rare enough for any statute to confer an enforceable right, spending-power statutes like Medicaid are especially unlikely to do so,' Justice Gorsuch says. He surveys the history and finds that 'early courts described federal grants not as commands but as contracts.' If Congress wants to create an enforceable right, it must do so unambiguously.