A recent blog in Health Affairs by Sara Rosenbaum, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, provides commentary on the Stewart v Azar lawsuit which challenges the legality of the Trump administration’s approval of Kentucky’s Medicaid 1115 work demonstration.
Oral arguments for the case are set for June 13 in federal court in Washington, DC. The blog discusses the three basic issues raised by the case, beginning with whether Section 1115 of the Social Security Act gives the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, the power to approve demonstrations designed solely to reduce eligibility and coverage.
“This is a case of historic importance,” Rosenbaum writes in Stewart v. Azar: Inside the Briefs Filed by Plaintiffs and Their Amici. “Never has an Administration attempted to impose work as a condition of Medicaid eligibility and to encourage such policies on a mass, nationwide basis.”