Can Medicare money protect doctors from abortion crimes? It worked before, desegregating hospitals

By MICHAEL WARREN
Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — The Supreme Court’s decision regarding Idaho’s abortion ban may hinge on whether federal spending power can protect doctors against a state’s criminal code. Justices questioning this power could look to the launch of Medicare. Two years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, health care remained segregated by race across the South, and Black patients were denied treatment at many hospitals. Atlanta’s Black doctors went to Washington to push for change. President Lyndon B. Johnson agreed, insisting that no hospital would get Medicare money without first desegregating. It worked — within months, nearly all U.S. hospitals ended segregation.