WHY IS IT GETTING HARDER FOR THE POOR TO GET MEDICARE YOU ASK?

According to a lawsuit filed in 2009, Idaho illegally underpaid home health care providers that enable Medicaid patients to live at home rather than being confined to a hospital or nursing facility. These providers, however, will not even be able to pursue their lawsuit, thanks to a 5-4 decision handed down by the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The decision largely broke down on familiar partisan lines, although conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy crossed over to vote with three members of the Court’s liberal bloc and Clinton-appointee Justice Stephen Breyer joined most of Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion announcing the Court’s judgment.

Scalia’s opinion in Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center rests on a distinction that even many lawyers are likely to find confusing. Just because something is illegal, Scalia explains on behalf of the Court, does not mean that individuals or businesses that are hurt by the illegal action can enforce the law in court.

The federal Medicaid law requires states to set payment rates for services “to assure that payments are consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care and are sufficient to enlist enough providers so that care and services are available under the plan at least to the extent that such care and services are available to the general population in the geographic area.” Thus, because health providers may choose not to accept Medicaid patients if they are not paid enough for doing so, state Medicaid programs must pay providers sufficiently high rates to ensure that the program’s beneficiaries have the same access to medical care as non-Medicaid patients.

Armstrong was originally filed in 2009, when Idaho hadn’t raised its Medicaid reimbursement rates since 2006. The plaintiffs claimed that these low rates did not keep up with the cost of caring for Medicaid patients, and thus violated Medicaid law.

The crux of Scalia’s opinion, however, is that this provision of the Medicaid law cannot be enforced through lawsuits. “The sole remedy Congress provided for a State’s failure to comply with Medicaid’s requirements” according to Scalia, “is the withholding of Medicaid funds by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.”

Though this holding does permit the federal government to pressure Idaho to raise its rates by threatening to cut off Medicaid funds to that state, it also places federal health officials in a bind. Under Scalia’s decision, the sole consequence for a state that fails to meet its obligations to Medicaid patients is to lose funding that it would otherwise use to provide medical care to Medicaid patients. Federal officials, for good reason, should be reluctant to invoke a power that could make conditions even worse for poor people in Idaho.

[h/t thinkprogress]

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STAFF WRITTER

HOW CAN THIS BE? THE SUPREME COURT RULED RACISM DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE

KU KLUX KOURT

Donald Sterling, the owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, told his girlfriend not to post pictures on Instagram of herself with black people and not to bring black people to his basketball games, according to an audio recording posted by TMZ.

In the recording, Sterling and his girlfriend are fighting over a picture she posted to Instagram of herself with NBA legend Magic Johnson, and Sterling demands that she stop “broadcasting” that she associates with black people. Sterling tells his girlfriend: “You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that … and not to bring them to my games.”

Later, he makes the point specifically about Magic Johnson, telling her that “it’s too bad you can’t admire (Johnson) privately…bring him here, feed him, fuck him, I don’t care. You can do anything. But don’t put him on an Instagram for the world to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games. OK?”

Sterling’s comments about Johnson follow a long argument about his girlfriend — who says in the recording that she is half-black and half-Mexican — not understanding the cultural differences between white, black, and Hispanic people. At one point, Sterling asks her if she gets “a benefit” from associating with black people, and calls her “stupid” when she asks why the race of the people she associates with matters. Sterling doesn't answer when she asks if it would have been different had it been Larry Bird in the photo.

When it comes to race, the comments aren't even the most troubling incident in Sterling’s time as the Clippers owner. In 2006, he was sued in a housing discrimination lawsuit that alleged that Sterling wouldn’t rent apartments to black families in Beverly Hills and other LA neighborhoods. The suit alleged that Sterling had once said that “black tenants smell and attract vermin.”

Former Clippers executive (and NBA player) Elgin Baylor sued Sterling in 2009, alleging that the owner discriminated against him based on his age and race.

The NBA didn't take action against Sterling in either instance, even though there is precedent for doing so: in 1993, Major League Baseball suspended Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott for a full season for comments she’d made about black and Jewish people.

More than three-quarters of the NBA’s players are black, and the league has a larger share of minority fans than any of other major sports leagues. The NBA can’t take away Sterling’s team. But it needs to do something, especially because it has already let Sterling off the hook so many times before.

Congratulations Donald Sterling, you are both today's worst person in the world and our asshat of the day.

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Editor-In-Chief

Roger West

SEAQUESTRATION THREATINING PUBLIC SAFETY SAYS…..

….Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, in his annual Year-End Report on the State of the Federal Judiciary, blasted the 2011 Budget Control Act’s automatic “sequestration” federal spending cuts and warned that the cuts to the federal court system’s budget “pose a genuine threat to public safety.”

Roberts, appointed to the Supreme Court in 2005 by President George W. Bush, listed “adequate funding for the Judiciary” as the “single most important issue facing the courts” and offered a Dickensian look at the federal judiciary past, present, and future.

Conceding that balanced budgets are important, Roberts blasted the Draconian sequester — cuts that came after nearly a decade of belt-tightening by the judicial branch. Because they had previously reduced costs significantly, the $350 million in new across-the-board cuts have already made it difficult for justice to be protected, Roberts argued, noting that “because virtually all of their core functions are constitutionally and statutorily required,” the courts have little discretion over what they spend:

ROBERTS: Sequestration cuts have affected court operations across the spectrum. There are fewer court clerks to process new civil and bankruptcy cases, slowing the intake procedure and propagating delays throughout the litigation process. There are fewer probation and pretrial services officers to protect the public from defendants awaiting trial and from offenders following their incarceration and release into the community. There are fewer public defenders available to vindicate the Constitution’s guarantee of counsel to indigent criminal defendants, which leads to postponed trials and delayed justice for the innocent and guilty alike. There is less funding for security guards at federal courthouses, placing judges, court personnel, and the public at greater risk of harm.

While last month’s Ryan-Murray budget deal will mitigate the sequestration cuts somewhat, Roberts warns that without more restored funding to the federal courts, the future “would be bleak” for America’s judiciary — which “undermines the public’s confidence in all three branches of government.”




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STAFF WRITER