Soskin v.Reinertson: District Court Enjoins Colorado's Termination of Immigrants' Medicaid Eligibility

IMMIGRANTS & PUBLIC BENEFITS

Health Care

SOSKIN V. REINERTSON: DISTRICT COURT ENJOINS COLORADO'S TERMINATION OF IMMIGRANTS' MEDICAID ELIGIBILITY
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 17, No. 2, April 8, 2003

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of a Colorado law that would have terminated Medicaid eligibility for many of the state's lawfully present immigrants. The new law, SB03-176, relies on distinctions among classes of lawfully present "qualified" immigrants incorporated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The PRWORA required states to provide Medicaid to certain categories of lawfully present immigrants and purportedly authorized states to determine whether to provide Medicaid to other groups of immigrants who were eligible under federal law. In SB03-176, the Colorado legislature relied on this provision to terminate the Medicaid eligibility of all immigrants for whom the PRWORA does not mandate coverage. The state Medicaid agency rushed to implement the law within a month after its passage.

NILC, the Welfare Law Center, the National Health Law Program, the Immigrants' Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Colorado ACLU brought a class action in federal district court on behalf of the immigrants affected by the law or its implementation. The action challenged the state's implementation of the law as violating the Medicaid Act by failing to adequately determine whether persons whose benefits were being terminated were still eligible and by failing to provide adequate notice and a right to a hearing. It also challenged the law itself on the ground that the state's action in distinguishing between classes of lawfully present immigrants violates the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. This claim is significant as a test of Congress's authority to delegate its unique power to make such distinctions, as it attempted to do in the PRWORA.

On Apr. 1, 2003, the date the law was scheduled to go into effect, Judge Robert E. Blackburn granted a temporary restraining order blocking the state's implementation of the law. A further hearing on the matter is scheduled for Apr. 11.

Soskin v.Reinertson, No. 03-RB-0529 (D.Colo. Apr. 1, 2003).