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CONTACT: Cal Adams (336-721-3674) |
News Release: October 21, 2002 |
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Jane Perkins (919-968-6308) |
LOW-INCOME
CHILDREN AND ADULTS WITH MEDICAID COVERAGE WIN
AT US SUPREME COURT IN DENTAL LAWSUIT APPEAL
Raleigh, NC The Supreme Court ruling today allowed the Medicaid dental case to proceed. In the case to the Supreme Court, North Carolina's Attorney General was making a surprising argument: Both private individuals who have Medicaid insurance (such as low income children and nursing home residents) and doctors and hospitals who see Medicaid patients could never enforce federal Medicaid laws, including laws that make sure proper medical care is available to patients with Medicaid.
“The Supreme Court's rejection of this appeal is a significant win for the people of North Carolina,” said Cal Adams, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. "Finally, we can now proceed to trial and allow the children we represent to tell their stories."
The plaintiffs in this case, who are all children, sued because they have been denied dental care as prescribed by the federal Medicaid Act. The Supreme Court’s decision should finally allow these children and their families to have their day in court and tell of the hardships they face in obtaining dental care.
The case was filed in November 2000 by six individual children. These children lived in all parts of the state and were traveling great distances to get care. In August 2002, the complaint was amended to add eight more children to the case and these children are seeking to represent a class of similarly situated children. The state of North Carolina has itself said there are over 665,000 children depending on Medicaid for oral health services and that the health and safety of these children is threatened because of the lack of access to these services. The state also notes that most dentists will not participate in Medicaid because the payment rates do not cover the cost of providing the service.
Rather than responding to the facts the children presented in this case, NC's Attorney General made a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that the state should be immune from suit by private citizens. Federal District Court Judge Malcolm Howard rejected the state's arguments in April, 2001. The Attorney General's office made the decision to appeal the case to the Fourth Circuit, which rejected all of North Carolina's major arguments and ordered the case to trial in May, 2002. Still not satisfied, The Attorney General appealed the state's case to the US Supreme Court.
Plaintiffs attorneys, Womble, Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, a private law firm based in North Carolina, the National Health Law Program, a public interest law firm, and the North Carolina Justice and Community Development Center, a statewide nonprofit organization, lauded the decision. According to Cal Adams, of Womble, Carlyle, "the North Carolina Attorney General's office was making an extraordinary argument to the Supreme Court in this case: that citizens cannot enforce their rights under the Medicaid act, even under the most outrageous of circumstances. Over one million low-income families with children, low-income people with disabilities and low-income seniors obtain health insurance through North Carolina's Medicaid program. The state's argument, if it had been successful, would have prevented some of the most vulnerable people in North Carolina from enforcing rights guaranteed them by federal law.”
RELEVANT WEBSITES
1999 North Carolina Institute of Medicine's Task Force on Dental Care Access
reportWomble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice