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Blatant Discrimination Within Federal Law: A 14th Amendment Analysis Of Medicaid’S Imd Exclusion, J. Michael E. Gray, Madeline Easdale

University of Massachusetts Law Review

A discriminatory piece of Medicaid law, the institution for mental diseases (IMD) exclusion, is denying people with serious mental illness equal levels of treatment as those with only primary healthcare needs. The IMD exclusion denies the use of federal funding in psychiatric hospitals for inpatient care. This article discusses the history and collateral implications of the IMD exclusion, then examines it through the lens of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, argues that people with severe mental illness constitute a quasi-suspect class, and that application of intermediate scrutiny would render the IMD exclusion unenforceable.