SOCIAL SECURITY LAW: High Court to Decide on Cal Medicaid Issue

Washington DC - The Supreme Court is set to begin hearing to decide on whether cash-strapped states like California can reduce Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals with poor patients.

California and government lawyers had insisted that healthcare benefits are a voluntary effort to provide medical assistance to the poor and funding disputes must be resolved by government, not by the courts.

For more than three years, the California Legislature has made a series of cuts to the Medi-Cal program but healthcare providers disputed the move and won the legal battle.