Overview

• The court’s 6-3 conservative majority held that the Medicaid Act’s free-choice-of-provider clause does not create a private right to sue states under Section 1983
• Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Congress never clearly authorized individual lawsuits to enforce Medicaid provider requirements, overturning a Fourth Circuit ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood
• South Carolina’s exclusion of its regional Planned Parenthood affiliate from Medicaid reimbursement since 2018 is now upheld, reversing both lower-court and state administrative appeals
• Public health groups warn that the decision risks cutting off services such as contraception, cancer screenings and STD testing in underserved and rural communities
• Planned Parenthood pledges to continue operations in Charleston and Columbia even as other Republican-led states explore similar funding bans and Congress debates a national defunding measure