The Guttmacher Institute has joined an amicus brief calling on the US Supreme Court to affirm that Medicaid recipients are entitled to seek health care from a qualified provider of their choosing and that they can go to court if they are denied that right. Medicaid is the largest source of public health insurance in the country and has long helped expand access to sexual and reproductive health care and other vital health services.
On April 2, the Supreme Court will hear Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a case addressing whether Medicaid’s “any qualified provider” provision allows Medicaid recipients to see the health care provider of their choosing. Specifically, this case is about whether patients can challenge in court South Carolina’s efforts to block them from accessing contraceptive care, STI testing and treatment, cancer screening and other care at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.
“This is yet another targeted attempt to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood and block Medicaid beneficiaries from seeing this critical provider of sexual and reproductive health services, but it is also about so much more than that,” says Destiny Lopez, Co-President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute. “The anti-abortion movement is once again seeking to control people’s bodily autonomy by attempting to dictate which providers you can and can’t see. Everyone should have the freedom to access high-quality, affordable health care from the provider of their choosing—and the Supreme Court must affirm this critical protection within the Medicaid program.”
“South Carolina’s actions will impose particularly significant barriers to health care for communities of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and others who have been excluded from social, economic, and political power. Systemic discrimination informs how these individuals interact with the healthcare system, and makes access to a trusted, freely-chosen provider even more essential. Terminating Planned Parenthood from South Carolina’s Medicaid program will result in harms to reproductive health that fall most heavily on those who have long been denied the opportunity to exercise decision-making about their bodies, families, and lives...
“The Medicaid program has dramatically expanded access to health care through public insurance that millions of people rely upon to build healthy lives and families. The ‘free-choice-of-provider provision’—and the access to high-quality, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care providers that it facilitates—has made Medicaid a crucial resource for people with low incomes across the United States.”