Babies who went without medical coverage, a mother of three with high blood pressure and a woman with kidney failure are among the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed today contending that TennCare illegally denied them Medicaid benefits.
Three nonprofit legal firms — the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Tennessee Justice Center and the National Health Law Program — are representing the plaintiffs. TennCare has also come under fire from the federal director of Medicaid programs, who this month sent a letter putting the agency on notice that it had failed to abide by its legal obligations. The suit comes after TennCare Director Darin Gordon sent a defiant response to that letter, blaming many of the state’s problems on the federal website healthcare.gov.
