A South Carolina appeals court ruled last Tuesday that a Medicaid recipient can sue the state after it tried to disqualify her from using Planned Parenthood as her medical provider.
In its ruling, the three judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the Medicare and Medicaid Act stipulate that patients can choose their own providers, and that patients can sue the government if it tries to limit “qualified providers.” This ruling marks the third time that a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that the state cannot defund Planned Parenthood.
In 2018, Republican Governor Henry McMaster issued an executive order which cut off state funding from the abortion provider. That led to a lawsuit from a Planned Parenthood patient, Julie Edwards, in the case Planned Parenthood South Atlantic v. Robert M. Kerr. Edwards sued the state of South Carolina because her Medicaid coverage would not pay for visits at Planned Parenthood. Though a lower court ruled in Edwards’ favor in 2020, a United States Supreme Court decision in June 2023 gave the case new life, sending it back to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for review.
Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote that depriving Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood would prohibit Medicaid beneficiaries from “freely choos[ing] among qualified healthcare providers, of which Planned Parenthood is one.”
“The ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable is a right that should not be lightly disregarded in the face of Congress’s obvious and express desire to confer it,” Wilkinson wrote.
Planned Parenthood praised the ruling. “Today’s ruling makes clear what we’ve long said: state politicians cannot block people with low incomes from choosing the Medicaid provider they know and trust,” Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement.
According to its 2021-2022 annual report, Planned Parenthood received a record-high $670.4 million in taxpayer/government revenue in just one year — much of which came from Medicaid funding. Meanwhile, it ends the lives of approximately 1,025 preborn American children every day.
