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Lawsuit challenges Medicaid proof-of-citizenship law

Physician Practice Advisor, July 4, 2006

Nine plantiffs have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, challenging a law that went into effect July 1 requiring Medicaid recipients to provide proof of citizenship to receive benefits, according to The Times-Picayune.

The law's intent is to prevent undocumented immigrants from claiming to be citizens to receive benefits provided only to legal residents. But the plantiffs allege that the new rules violate the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution regarding due process of law.

The plaintiffs in the suit-including a 95-year-old Illinois woman who was born in Arkansas at a time when birth certificates weren't kept and a 72-year-old woman from Missouri who was abandoned as an infant and has no passport or birth certificate-claim they cannot document their citizenship and will unfairly lose their benefits under the new law, according to the article.

Click here to read the The Times-Picayune article.

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