Maine asks Supreme Court to take up Medicaid case

The petition to the court, filed late Thursday, centers on whether the state has the ability to narrow its Medicaid coverage to omit 19- and-20-year-olds, which the state tried to do in 2012 to overcome a budget deficit.

The state wants to dedicate funding to more vulnerable and older populations and doesn’t want to go down the “federal government’s path of reckless welfare spending,” according to a statement from Mary Mayhew, Maine’s health commissioner.

To hear the petition, four of nine justices must agree. The Supreme Court usually hears cases of national significance and that have conflicting lower court rulings.

Mayhew said the case will answer whether states that have expanded Medicaid may “ever have the flexibility to reverse their decision.”

The crux of the case is Maine’s agreement surrounding Medicaid eligibility. In 2009, Maine agreed to cover low-income 18 to-20-year-olds through 2010 as a condition to receive stimulus funds, according to court records.

However, Obamacare then required Maine to continue meeting the eligibility standards until 2019.

With a budget crisis looming in 2012, the state appealed to the federal government to get permission to eliminate Medicaid coverage for 19- and 20-year-olds. The request was denied and Maine took the federal government to court.

Maine argued in lower courts that it didn’t have an opportunity to restrict its eligibility standards before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, the opinion reads.

Maine argued the decision violates the Supreme Court ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius, which upheld the ACA’s individual mandate but forbade the government from penalizing states that don’t expand Medicaid. Maine declined the expansion in 2013, one of 19 states to do so.

However, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously denied the state’s argument and viewed the government’s decision as constitutional.

The case is Mayhew v. Burwell.