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Commonwealth Of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Brief And Record Appendix For The Plaintiff On Reserve And Report From The Single Justice, Finch, Et Al. V. Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, Et Al., No. Sjc-10748 (Filed September 2010), Wendy E. Parmet, Lorianne Sainsbury-Wong, Lauren Guth Barnes

Wendy E. Parmet

In 2009 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a law, St. 2009, c. 65, § 31(a), that excluded approximately 44,000 legal immigrants from Commonwealth Care, a key component of the state’s 2006 health reform act which provides health insurance subsidies for uninsured residents whose income are up to 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. In 2010 Health Law Advocates, a public interest law firm, filed a class action before a Single Justice of the State Supreme Judicial Court challenging the exclusion as violating the equal protection provisions of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The Single Justice referred four questions to …