Raw Story: Court strikes down Arizona law defunding Planned Parenthood

[Skidmore]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/22/court-strikes-down-arizona-law-defunding-planned-parenthood/

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court ruling that will prevent Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s administration from effectively defunding Planned Parenthood. In their opinion, the panel of judges held that the Arizona law (HB 2800) violates the Medicaid Act’s requirement that Medicaid recipients are free to choose their provider “by precluding Medicaid patients from using medical providers concededly qualified to perform family planning services to patients in Arizona generally, solely on the basis that those providers separately perform privately funded, legal abortions.” The law would have prevented Arizona patients from having access to preventative care — including cancer screenings, STI tests, and birth control — at a Planned Parenthood health center.

Arizona contended that the statutory term “qualified” was “too vague for the court to enforce.” The court disagreed, noting that in the Medicaid Act, “‘qualified’ is tethered to an objective benchmark: ‘qualified to perform the service or services required.’” The court stated the requirements for determining the qualifications are “no different from the sorts of qualification or expertise that courts routinely make in various contexts,” refuting Arizona’s claim that it can unilaterally decide who is and who is not qualified to provide family planning services. “Read as Arizona suggests,” the court argued, “the free-choice-of-provider requirement would be self-eviserating” because a state could label any exclusionary rule — like the availability of legally performed abortions on the premises — as a qualification.

This marks the second time in less than a month that Planned Parenthood has defeated an attempt to limit access to its facilities. On July 30, the ACLU prevailed in its lawsuit on behalf Planned Parenthood of Indiana when Judge Tanya Walton Pratt decided that an Indiana law similar to the Arizona one violated the same free-choice-of-provider provision....more

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

1. I'd like to know,in the aggregate

Just how much money these anti-government spending wackos,who usually are the ones behind these anti-woman,anti-voter,anti-choice,anti-ACA laws,spend on drafting,sometimes enacting,then ultimately defending those laws unsuccessfully in courts.Considering that every last penny spent is eventually rendered wasted and that,from my admitted limited perspective,it's the anti-spenders doing that wasting of tax dollars,I think I have a valid question.I've seen figures on the costs of symbolically repealing the ACA 40 times listed in the hundreds of millions of dollars alone.Adding bad law making at state levels into the mix,such as the one in the OP,must bring the levels of wasted money and time,as more money,to mind boggling levels.Levels I suspect,that instead,could fund Head Start,SNAP,Meals on Wheels or any number of other programs that actually have benefit.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. So well put that I would like to use your post, or at least the general idea

to write a letter to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star if you wouldn't mind. FWIW, I get published on a regulat basis.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

3. I don't mind

In fact,I'd be honored.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. Consider it done. If it gets published I will post it in the Arizona group and credit you.