WASHINGTON (June 30, 2025)- On June 26, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a case involving whether Medicaid beneficiaries can sue in federal court when a state limits their freedom to choose a qualified provider, as required by the Medicaid statute. The Court held that Medicaid’s free choice of provider requirement cannot be privately enforced in federal court. Instead, the Court held, the HHS Secretary can enforce this requirement at his discretion. In the context of the South Carolina policy at issue in Medina, the Court’s holding means beneficiaries have no ability to challenge South Carolina’s decision in federal court to exclude Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program, even though it was done for reasons wholly unrelated to the quality of the family planning and preventive reproductive health care it provides and even though it seriously threatens access to these vital health care services. Numerous states are expected to follow South Carolina’s lead.
“The Medina decision represents a fundamental threat to the health of countless Medicaid beneficiaries who depend on Planned Parenthood for critical health care and have no ability to otherwise pay for care,” said Lynn Goldman, Dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University.
Georges C. Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, added “not only does the decision contravene longstanding legal precedent regarding the scope of protections afforded under the law, but the decision will cause long-lasting and measurable harm.”
An amicus brief signed by nearly 500 public health and health policy deans and scholars, the American Public Health Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Network for Public Health Law, Council of Chairs of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health, and American Medical Women’s Association presented the Court with extensive evidence regarding the vital role of family planning and preventive reproductive health services and the devastating impact of excluding a primary family planning provider given the magnitude of the already-existing deserts of family planning providers in poor communities – a problem compounded by a similar dearth of maternity care providers that leave women who become pregnant with little or no access to care.
The amici were represented by Thomas Barker (counsel of record), Andrew London, Brenna Rosen, and Kian Azimpoor, Foley Hoag LLC. The brief can be found here