Overview

• In a 6-3 decision in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the Supreme Court ruled that Medicaid recipients lack a federal right to sue states for excluding providers from their Medicaid programs.
• Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion held that Section 1983 does not authorize private lawsuits over provider choice, a ruling that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from, warning it undermines Reconstruction-era civil rights protections.
• Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough approved a one-year prohibition on Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood after Republicans narrowed a proposed ten-year ban in the Senate’s pending budget bill.
• These parallel judicial and legislative actions give states broad authority to exclude Planned Parenthood and potentially other politically disfavored providers—such as those offering contraception, IVF, gender-affirming care or HIV treatment—from Medicaid coverage.
• Planned Parenthood warns that losing Medicaid funding could force the closure of nearly 200 clinics and deprive more than 1.1 million low-income patients of essential reproductive and preventive services.