FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts
[email protected]
410-576-7009
17 States Argue Medicaid Act Gives Patients the Freedom to Choose Their Own Providers
BALTIMORE, MD (March 12, 2025) – Attorney General Anthony G. Brown today joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court of the United States to affirm a lower court’s decision recognizing Medicaid recipients’ individual right to receive care from the qualified providers of their choice, including Planned Parenthood.
“All Marylanders, regardless of their income or insurance, deserve the freedom to choose a medical provider who can meet the full spectrum of their health needs,” said Attorney General Brown. “These decisions should be guided by medical expertise and patients’ own personal choices, not outside influences.”
In 2018, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster issued an executive order directing the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to remove any organization that provides abortion services, including Planned Parenthood, from the state’s Medicaid provider list. A South Carolina Medicaid recipient challenged the state’s decision, and a federal district court ruled that the state’s exclusion of Planned Parenthood was unlawful. In March 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s decision, holding that the Medicaid Act gives patients the freedom to choose their own qualified healthcare providers, notwithstanding the Governor’s action. South Carolina sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear the case on Wednesday, April 2.
As the coalition’s amicus brief explains, Medicaid ensures that vulnerable populations can access safe, affordable, and quality healthcare. In order for the Medicaid program to function effectively, patients must be able to access a wide variety of medical providers, including reproductive healthcare providers. In addition to providing abortion care, Planned Parenthood also provides birth control, screenings for sexually transmitted infections, and educational services. These services are vital to historically underinsured populations.
The coalition’s brief argues that while states have considerable discretion in implementing Medicaid programs, specific safeguards – like the free choice of provider provision – are in place to specifically counter state policies that restrict Medicaid recipients to a narrow subset of healthcare providers, protecting patients’ healthcare decisions from government micromanagement. The free choice of provider provision gives individual patients – and not state government – the freedom to choose their own healthcare providers. The coalition argues that South Carolina’s efforts to stymie patient choice illustrate exactly why Congress thought it was necessary to safeguard individual rights in the healthcare context.
Joining AG Brown in submitting the brief, were the attorneys general from California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawai’i, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington.
###