By Isabella Torregiani
11:42am PDT, Jun 27, 2025
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In a 6–3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 1965 Medicaid Act doesn't let patients sue states over their decision to block certain providers from receiving Medicaid funds. The ruling gives South Carolina the power to defund Planned Parenthood.
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On Thursday, June 26, the justices overturned a lower court ruling that had allowed a lawsuit from patients to continue with the legal process. Previously, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, sided with Planned Parenthood by issuing an injunction that blocked South Carolina from enforcing its Medicaid funding ban. "Like other States, South Carolina has an administrative process that lets providers challenge their exclusion from the State's Medicaid program," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion, adding that "private enforcement does not always benefit the public, not least because it requires States to divert money and attention away from social services and toward litigation."
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Back in 2018, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed an executive order that blocked all abortion clinics, including Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid funding. Attorneys for Planned Parenthood and Julie Edwards, a Medicaid-eligible patient, argued that the order violated federal law, which states beneficiaries may obtain medical care from any qualified provider. Neil Gorsuch, however, explained that the Medicaid Act doesn't clearly define what "qualified" means — and those circumstances are typically addressed through federal government lawsuits. "The decision whether to let private plaintiffs enforce a new statutory right poses delicate questions of public policy," he said.
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The ruling wasn't unanimous, as three justices dissented — including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She argued that the Medicaid Act does give patients the right to sue if their preferred provider is disqualified: "The provision's history confirms what the text makes evident: that Congress intended the provision to be binding," she wrote. "Congress made a deliberate choice to protect Medicaid recipients' ability to choose their own providers by employing statutory language that it knew, based on its Medicare experience, would achieve that end."
