Update on the Medicaid Citizenship Lawsuit
On September 19, 2006, a decision was issued in the U.S. District Court case, Bell v. Leavitt, concerning the provision of the DRA that requires citizenship verification in Medicaid (the case was filed by the Shriver Center, NHeLP, and others). Click here to view the decision.
The descriptions below use rather broad brush strokes to discuss what's happened in non-legalese.
The judge ruled two things:
- Title IV-E foster children and children receiving adoption assistance were certified as a class in order to proceed with the case. The judge also found that they were likely to be harmed by the citizenship documentation requirement. Although he did not issue an injunction, a hearing is scheduled for October 5, 2006, so that the attorneys in the case can provide more proof of the harm that would be done to these children under this requirement. If an injunction is issued in the future, it could potentially exempt from the citizenship documentation requirement the Title IV-E foster care children (which is about half of the 500,000 children in foster care) or adoption assistance children who receive Medicaid.
- Unfortunately, the judge dismissed the rest of the case based on his view that the other plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. He did not rule on the merits of the claims of these other plaintiffs. For complicated reasons, the attorneys feel that they have a good chance at getting the judge to reconsider the case and hope to file a motion for reconsideration soon.
What does this mean? It means that everything is still pending. While the situation looks promising for the IV-E foster kids, this ruling does not negate the need for a technical fix by Congress for the rest of the foster kids. Further, the ruling leaves everyone else still at risk. (Earlier this summer, CMS issued guidance that exempted seniors eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare ("dual eligibles") and certain recipients of SSI from the citizenship documentation requirements.)
We'll add more updates when we have more information about the disposition of the case.
