Planned Parenthood Prevails in South Carolina Medicaid Pay Suit

A Medicaid beneficiary can sue South Carolina’s health department for threatening to drop an otherwise qualified Planned Parenthood medical provider from its payroll, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

The Medicaid Act’s free-choice-of-provider section contains the type of “rights-creating” language that gives private people—like beneficiary Julie Edwards—the ability to bring lawsuits to enforce the rights it furnishes, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said.

The US Supreme Court’s latest opinion on private rights of action, Health & Hospital Corp. of Marion County v. Talevski, “offered an illuminating analysis,” but it didn’t create an entirely new ...