Judge sneaks a Taylor Swift reference into the opinion

A judge in Washington managed to quote Taylor Swift in an opinion regarding the Medicaid case.

U.S. District Court Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg, who was scheduled to rule on the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) case, paraphrased Swift’s “Exile” in the middle of his formal, 66-page ruling.

“Since they’ve seen the movie before (and didn’t like the ending), the defendants want to leave through 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 planned changes to Indiana’s HIP program, including introducing work requirements, charging premiums to people above a certain income threshold, failing to provide three months of look-back coverage, and exempting non-emergency medical transportation.

Premium payments – known as POWER accounts and work requirements – have been suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic and are set to resume on July 1.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are suing HHS to seek a revocation of federal approval for Indiana to require premiums, the removal of retroactive coverage and the elimination of coverage for transportation costs to and from Medicaid-covered services, according to the Indiana Justice Project, which represents the plaintiffs.

Boasberg issued a ruling Thursday that revoked Indiana’s federal approval of HIP. He found a problem with POWER accounts that he said affected “as many as 29 percent of all Hoosiers subject to HIP contributions” who were dropped from HIP for failure to pay their contributions.

The plaintiffs argued that a 2020 federal assessment found that most HIP members did not clearly understand POWER accounts and how they worked, leading to them losing their health insurance.

Boasberg managed to sneak in Swift’s words, referencing an earlier HHS petition to dismiss the case.

Newsweek I reached out to Boasberg via email for comment.

Boasberg had made headlines before because, shortly after being appointed to the Washington court, he was assigned to an investigation led by the Justice Department special counsel tasked with deciding whether to impeach former President Donald Trump.

Trump was ultimately indicted in August 2023 on four counts, including allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and his alleged role in the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

Boasberg was also once roommate of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at Yale University, when the two lived in a house with six other students. They reportedly remained good friends.