{"id":16677,"date":"2025-06-26T16:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T16:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/16677\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T16:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T16:03:10","slug":"scotus-upholds-medicaid-ban-at-south-carolina-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/16677\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Upholds Medicaid Ban at South Carolina Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/strong>he Supreme Court moved to limit access to health care for over 1.3 million South Carolinians<\/a> on Thursday by allowing the state to block Medicaid recipients from getting care at Planned Parenthood. The tight restriction on reproductive rights will likely pave the way for similar bans in other states, as ongoing attacks on abortion providers further impinge on access to maternal, gynecological, and other basic forms of health care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a 6-3 decision, the court determined that Planned Parenthood clinics and patients in South Carolina may not sue the state for denying Medicaid funding to the reproductive care provider. The ruling overturns repeated lower court decisions that affirmed Medicaid recipients\u2019 rights to visit a provider of their choosing that accepts the program. It comes against the backdrop of looming federal cuts to Medicaid, which would further restrict health care access for millions of low-income Americans.<\/p>\n

In South Carolina, abortion is already subjected to a near-total ban. State law prohibits abortion after six weeks with limited exceptions \u2014 which is often before someone would be aware that they\u2019re pregnant. Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has been direct about wanting to target Planned Parenthood because the network of clinics is known as an abortion provider.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Carolina has made it clear that we value the right to life,\u201d McMaster said in a February statement<\/a>. \u201cTherefore, taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion providers who are in direct opposition to their beliefs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The idea that Medicaid is subsidizing abortion care in South Carolina is incredibly misleading, said Susanna Birdsong, general counsel and vice president of compliance at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMedicaid does not cover abortion except in very narrow circumstances of rape, incest in life of the pregnant person,\u201d Birdsong said. \u201cThat\u2019s been a federal rule since the 1970s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood provides care for a host of other sexual and reproductive wellness concerns \u2014 meaning that low-income South Carolinians will lose access to \u201chealth care that has nothing to do with abortion,\u201d Birdsong said. She pointed to things like testing for sexually transmitted infections, cancer screening, and birth control.<\/p>\n

In its ruling, the court made clear that it was aware of the other services Planned Parenthood provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlanned Parenthood South Atlantic operates two clinics in South Carolina, offering a wide range of services to Medicaid and non-Medicaid patients,\u201d reads a summary of the decision<\/a>. \u201cIt also performs abortions.\u201d <\/p>\n

The court noted that Planned Parenthood and a patient sued under the any-qualified-provider provision, which allows Medicaid patients to seek care from a provider of their choosing, but the majority determined they did not necessarily have an \u201cenforceable\u201d right to do so.<\/p>\n

Experts expect that this decision will open the floodgates for other states to pass similar bans, limiting access to the largest provider of reproductive and sexual health care in the United States for millions of lower-income Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther states certainly have tried it before,\u201d said Dr. Jamila Perritt, an OB-GYN and president of the nonprofit Physicians for Reproductive Health. \u201cMuch in the same way that abortion bans really swept this country, I think we\u2019re going to see similar effects.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision to limit where Medicaid patients can access care disproportionately affects women of color, said Perritt. As of 2023, the majority of people enrolled in Medicaid in South Carolina were nonwhite, and roughly 39 percent of Medicaid enrollees were Black<\/a>, according to health policy research nonprofit KFF.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even before the decision, access to health care \u2014 particularly reproductive and sexual health care \u2014 in South Carolina was a challenge for lower-income residents. Roughly 41 of the state\u2019s 46 counties<\/a> are considered federally designated \u201cHealth Professional Shortage Areas,\u201d and Medicaid recipients are disproportionately likely to live in communities with provider shortages.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about communities that are already marginalized from care, communities that already have disproportionately poor reproductive and sexual health outcomes,\u201d said Perritt, who predicted the decision would have \u201csignificant negative health consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Aside from having one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, South Carolina is one of only 10 states not to expand Medicaid coverage since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010. South Carolina also has the eighth-highest maternal mortality rate in the country, hovering around 47.2 pregnancy-related<\/a> deaths per 100,000 live births, and some of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections in the nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a state that should be investing more in its public health infrastructure and making sure that people who live in the state have access to the care that they need,\u201d said Birdsong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights for State Innovation Exchange, said, like the state\u2019s abortion ban, lower-income people in South Carolina will bear the brunt of the burden of this decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt targets people who are already limited on resources to say, \u201cYou know what? On top of that, you actually don\u2019t get to have a decision on the care that you get and the provider you get it from,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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At the same time, the Trump administration and Congress are seeking to further restrict health coverage for low-income Americans. A Congressional Budget Office report found that the House of Representatives\u2019 version of the \u201cBig, Beautiful, Bill\u201d would leave 16 million Americans without health insurance and kick 7.8 million people off of Medicaid<\/a>. Senate Republicans are considering their own set of Medicaid cuts, though they\u2019ve been snarled by political opposition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a clear and obvious attack on people with low income, people who rely on Planned Parenthood clinics to get life-saving health services,\u201d said Perritt. She described the decision as part of the government\u2019s broader efforts \u201cto eliminate access to comprehensive health care for folks, really across the country. This has to also be understood as an attack that reaches far beyond the borders of South Carolina.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court moved to limit access to health care for over 1.3 million South Carolinians on Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":16678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[16429,16426,210,1141,1142,16437,16430,16428,16434,16435,16436,16432,16433,16427,67,132,68,16431],"class_list":{"0":"post-16677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-article-type-article-post","9":"tag-day-thursday","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-language-english","14":"tag-medium","15":"tag-page-type-article","16":"tag-partner-factiva","17":"tag-partner-smart-news","18":"tag-partner-social-flow","19":"tag-subject-justice","20":"tag-subject-politics","21":"tag-time-15-00","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-wc-0-999"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114750515137031986","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}