It sounds like great news: a U.S. Fifth Circuit
Court of Appeals affirmed
that federal law allows Louisiana and other states to cut off Medicaid funding to
facilities “not qualified” under their regulations. However, the impact in Louisiana,
particularly concerning abortion provision, is unclear, while directly affecting
Democrat Gov. John Bel
Edwards’ political future.
This week, the full Circuit held
that Medicaid recipients of services had no cause of action in federal court to
contest the decisions of Texas and Louisiana
to withhold Medicaid reimbursement funding from Planned Parenthood. In the wake
of 2015 revelations of body part-harvesting going on in the organization’s
clinics – contested by it but, as the Circuit noted, demonstrably verifiable –
both states declared the organization unqualified and would not reimburse for
any Medicaid procedure. This would have meant denying the organization around
$300,000 annually in Louisiana.
That has yet to happen, since the organization successfully
garnered an injunction against that. With the Circuit’s decision, that denial now
may proceed as it has in Arkansas, where a different
circuit court upheld its cutoff. Five
other circuits have ruled the other way, meaning a denied provider can
rally Medicaid recipients to intervene on their behalf in federal courts, which
would be expected to overturn state denials under another part the Medicaid
statute that grants freedom of provider choice for recipients, in those states
in addition to pursuing administrative relief in state executive and judicial
forums.
