The U.S. Supreme Court on April 2 will hear oral arguments in a case over whether South Carolina can stop Planned Parenthood from providing non-abortion health care services for Medicaid recipients.
The question before the nine justices they will weigh is narrow: Does the Medicaid Act’s any qualified provider provision unambiguously confer a private right upon a Medicaid beneficiary to choose a specific provider?
South Carolina wants to make the case Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic about abortion, Planned Parenthood attorney Catherine Humphreville said in a Zoom call Friday with reporters.
But the case, Humphreville said, "is really just about can a Medicaid patient go to Planned Parenthood for a pap smear, for birth control, something like that. This should be apolitical."
This is the third time South Carolina has asked the high court to step in, after Gov. Henry McMaster in 2018 issued an executive order directing the state Department of Health and Human Services to remove abortion clinics from getting taxpayer dollars for any reason.
The governor told reporters this week that South Carolina taxpayers don't want their money going to organizations like Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion access.
South Carolina law bans abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy.
The S.C. Supreme Court is currently weighing the ban's wording around fetal heartbeat.
"People of this state are opposed to that (abortion)," McMaster said.
Planned Parenthood runs two clinics in South Carolina: in Columbia and in Charleston.
And, together, those clinics receive less than a 10th of a percent of state Medicaid dollars — money, Planned Parenthood says, that does not pay for abortions.
South Carolina Medicaid spent $35 million on family planning services — defined by state health and human services as "preconception services" — in 2022-23, according to the latest available data.
Of that money, Planned Parenthood received $88,464, or 0.2% of the total dollars that pays for services like birth control, cancer screenings, hysterectomies and vasectomies, sexually transmitted infection testing and other non-abortion-related services.
"We provide a service, and then Medicaid reimburses us for providing that service," said Dr. Katherine Farris, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic's chief medical officer. "And Medicaid, as a general rule, reimburses far less than other insurance providers. Which means that often the money we get back for the service we have provided, doesn't even cover that service. There is no way that it is then going on to support other services, like abortion."
Several federal appeals courts have sided with Planned Parenthood on the question next week before the U.S. Supreme Court, which had declined to hear the case twice.
And, a couple of years ago, the court decided a similar case around the Medicaid Act that Humphreville said set a precedent for how the high court should rule in South Carolina's case.
But two other federal appeals courts weighing cases in Arkansas and Texas sided with the states — cases that Humphreville said are different than South Carolina's but what has ultimately led the Supreme Court to settle the question.
"This case has never been about the quality of care Planned Parenthood provides," Humphreville said. "South Carolina has never questioned that Planned Parenthood provides safe, high quality, effective care. That is not in dispute here."
Should the Supreme Court rule in South Carolina's favor, McMaster told reporters this week he does not worry that maternal and reproductive health, for example, will worsen.
"There are plenty of good organizations that provide maternal health, advice, counseling, care, and we need more of those. We need those kind of counselors," he said. "But I'm confident ... that the people of this state do not want their tax money going for abortions."
Other places in South Carolina that take Medicaid patients provide great care, Farris said.
But many are strapped, she added Friday.
"I regularly hear from patients that they want to get an IUD (long-lasting birth control device), and if they call the health department, the next IUD appointment is three months from now. And if they want to come into my clinic, they can get that IUD placed the same day," Farris said. "And that is a massive difference. Delaying access to effective birth control by three months, as you can imagine, has massive impacts on patients' wellbeing."
