TOPEKA, Kan. (Legal Newsline) – Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court’s decision upholding the new Department of Labor regulations, which his office believes threaten the availability of home health care services in Kansas.
Schmidt, using a friend-of-the-court brief, claims that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia made the wrong decision when it upheld agency rules that require overtime compensation for home health care workers and narrows the services these workers can perform.
“We believe the appeals court erred in upholding these rules and are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case,” Schmidt said. “These new rules are yet another example of a federal agency writing regulations in an area the Congress gave it no authority to regulate. The tragic result of these rules will be to limit the availability of much-needed services for Kansas seniors. This rule also amounts to another unfunded mandate on the states, which fund a significant number of home health care workers through their Medicaid programs.”
Eleven other state attorneys general joined onto the brief.