On January 6, 2023, children’s rights advocates Disability Rights Iowa, Children’s Rights, National Health Law Program, and Ropes & Gray, LLP, filed a class action lawsuit against the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services for allegedly denying Medicaid-eligible children their right to mental health care.
The advocates filed the class-action on behalf of Medicaid-eligible Iowa residents under the age of 21 whose mental health conditions require intensive home and community-based services to meet their needs and allow them to live successfully at home. The complaint asserts that the state “has long recognized that no semblance of a children’s system exists for mental health services in Iowa,” which ranked forty-first worst in the nation in 2021 for the number of youths aged 12-17 experiencing from at least one major depressive episode in the past year. The advocates allege that Iowa has failed to meet its obligations under the Medicaid Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, leaving the state’s youth at an increased risk for institutionalization and isolation from their families.
Read the complaint here.
Last Updated on January 25, 2023 by Aimed Alliance
