🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
A judge in Washington, D.C., managed to quote Taylor Swift in an opinion regarding a Medicaid case.
Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, Judge James "Jeb" Boasberg—tasked with handing down a ruling in a suit regarding the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP)—paraphrased Swift's track "Exile" in the middle of his formal 66-page ruling.
"Because they've seen this film before (and they didn't like the ending), Defendants seek to leave out the side door. Cf. Taylor Swift, Exile, on Folklore (Republic Records 2020)," he wrote.
Three plaintiffs sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2019, a year after it approved Indiana's planned changes to the HIP, including the introduction of work requirements, charging premiums for those above a certain income threshold, a lack of three-months retroactive coverage and a waiver of non-emergency medical transportation.
Premium payments—known as POWER accounts and work requirements—were paused during the COVID pandemic and are set to resume on July 1.
In the suit, the plaintiffs are suing the HHS in order to remove the federal approval given to Indiana to require premiums, remove retroactive coverage and eliminate coverage of transportation to and from Medicaid covered services, according to the Indiana Justice Project, which is representing the plaintiffs.
Boasberg handed down his ruling on Thursday where he removed the federal approval given to Indiana for the HIP. He found issue with the POWER accounts which he said affected "a whopping 29 percent of all Hoosiers subject to premiums," who were disenrolled from HIP over non-payment of their premiums.
The plaintiffs had argued that a 2020 Federal Evaluation found that most HIP members did not have a good understanding of POWER Accounts and how they work, leading to them losing their medical coverage.
Boasberg managed to sneak in Swift's lyrics when referring to the HHS' previous petition to have the case thrown out.
Newsweek contacted Boasberg by email for comment.
Boasberg previously made headlines because shortly after he was appointed to the Washington court he was placed in charge of the Justice Department's special counsel investigations to decide whether to indict former President Donald Trump.
Trump was eventually indicted in August 2023 on four charges, including allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and for his alleged role in the January 6 Capitol Riots.
Boasberg was also once a roommate of Trump's Supreme Court appointee Justice Brett Kavanaugh, at Yale University when the two lived in a home with six other students. They have reportedly remained good friends.
About the writer
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, ... Read more