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Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts sided with liberal justices as Planned Parenthood won a big victory against red states who tried to deny funding to Medicaid patients who use them for non-abortion services.

Pete Williams of NBC News reported:



It’s a victory for Planned Parenthood. The roots of this case go back to that video released that purported to show planned parenthood officials talking about selling fetal tissues. The videos were later discredited. Kansas and Louisiana saying that Medicaid patients in those states could not get medical services from planned the patients sued. They won in the lower courts.

The states appealed and today the issue people court declined to take the case. That leaves the victory in the lower court for the Medicaid patients and Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood in those states doesn’t provide abortion services. It’s pregnancy counseling, breast cancer screening. That kind of thing. That’s what was at issue. Three of the court’s conservative said the court should have taken this case — Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh appeared to have voted with the rest of the court not to take this case. Clarence Thomas says why didn’t we take this case. It’s a big deal about whether Medicaid patients get to sue over who their health care providers are. That really should be a state he says I think the reason we didn’t take it is because Planned Parenthood is involved here and that’s no reason not to take this case just because it’s politically fraught. It leaves the victory for planned parenthood intact.

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Video:

Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts sided with liberal justices as Planned Parenthood won a big victory against red states who tried to deny funding to Medicaid patients who use them for non-abortion services. https://t.co/ks6MqBPqPT pic.twitter.com/V79frcrf2M — Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) December 10, 2018

In other words, states can’t use bogus right-wing doctored right-wing videos to deny medical services to lower-income women on Medicaid. It is interesting that Trump’s newest Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the liberals in the case, but what might be more critical is the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberals.

There has been some speculation that Roberts might become the new swing vote on the court.

While this is just one case, it along with the Obamacare ruling, reveal that it isn’t a slam dunk that this court is going to be as far right wing as Trump and his followers dreamed up when they shoved Kavanagh’s confirmation through the Senate.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

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