Attorney General Ford Urges Supreme Court to Defend Medicaid Recipients’ Freedom to Choose Their Providers

Carson City, NV — Today, Attorney General Aaron D. Ford announced he has joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court 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.

“Medicaid recipients deserve the freedom to choose the health care provider that best serves their needs and to be free from government overreach into their private medical choices,” said AG Ford. “There are around 791,000 Nevadans enrolled in Medicaid, and they deserve to make their own medical decisions. Medicaid is designed to help our vulnerable residents access safe and quality health care, and any effort to politicize this process does nothing but harm Nevadans, and Americans, who need our help.”

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 Ford in submitting the brief, which was led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, were the attorneys general from California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.

Review the amicus brief.

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