Medicaid law softened after groups sue: lawyers

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Health and Human Services
Department has scaled back a new law so that it exempts the
elderly and the disabled from having to prove they are U.S.
citizens to qualify for Medicaid health insurance, lawyers
suing the government said on Friday.

The law, which went into effect July 1, requires people to
supply original documents like passports or birth certificates
to receive Medicaid benefits. Some 55 million low-income people
are covered by Medicaid.

But in regulations amending the law filed late on Thursday,
the government made exceptions for certain groups, including
those on Medicare and those who get certain Social Security
benefits, according to John Bouman, a lawyer at the Shriver
Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, which filed the lawsuit
seeking class action status challenging the law.

That suit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court in
Chicago, argues that the law would hurt the most vulnerable
people, and that it violated the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment
guarantee of due process.

Plaintiffs will now amend the complaint to argue that key
groups like the homeless and victims of natural disasters still
face significant challenges to comply with the law, Bouman
said.

“A big chunk of the people we thought would be affected
will not be harmed, as a result (of the changes to the
regulations),” Bouman said. “But there is still a large group
not out of the woods yet.”

The law is intended to keep illegal immigrants from getting
government-sponsored heath care, but critics say it could throw
millions of U.S. citizens off the government health program
because they can’t prove that they are citizens.

A brief hearing at the U.S. District Court in Chicago on
the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order was
held on Friday, but a new hearing was set for July 28 in light
of the new regulations.

U.S. hospitals, which on average get 15 percent of their
revenue from Medicaid, fear the law will suppress Medicaid
eligibility and have also called for revisions.