Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center v. Shewry

Opinion

NICHOLSON, J.

We enter here into the arcane world of Medicaid law to answer a fundamental question: does a federal statute imposing notice and comment requirements apply to actions taken or mandated by a state legislature? In 2004, the California Legislature, as part of adopting a state budget after the constitutional budget deadline had expired, proposed and enacted over only a three-day period a freeze on the rates the state would use to reimburse certain hospitals that provided services to Medicaid beneficiaries during the state’s 2004-2005 fiscal year. A large number of those…