Meyers by Walden v. Reagan

Jeanne Meyers (plaintiff) was an Iowa Medicaid-benefits recipient with a speech handicap. After Meyers’s speech pathologist recommended the use of an electronic speech device, Meyers’s doctor prescribed her the HandiVoice 110, for which Meyers sought Medicaid coverage. The Iowa Department of Human Services (the department) denied coverage, stating that such devices were not covered under Iowa’s program. Meyers sued the commissioner of the department, Michael Reagan (defendant), and chief of the department’s Bureau of Medical Services, Donald Kassar (defendant), contending that Reagan and Kassar violated Meyers’s right to Medicaid benefits. After a new speech device, the Vois Model 130, became available, Meyers amended her complaint, seeking a court order requiring Reagan and Kassar to provide the more expensive Vois Model 130 under the Iowa Medicaid program. Meyers filed a motion for summary judgment and submitted affidavits from her doctors supporting Meyers’s position that the electronic device was a necessary and reasonable treatment for her speech condition. Reagan and Kassar contended that Iowa was permitted to exclude electronic speech devices from Medicaid coverage because states had broad discretion to decide the scope of services offered under the program. Reagan and Kassar further countered that summary judgment was inappropriate, contending that if a device must be provided, genuine issues of fact remained as to which device should be covered for Meyers’s treatment. The district court granted Meyers’s motion, finding that Meyers should receive the HandiVoice 110 under the program. Reagan and Kassar appealed.