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Martin v. State3/21/2002
s not possible because the federal law prohibits exactly what the state law allows.
Having concluded that the state lien provision is in conflict with federal law, we are now presented with two options for the ultimate fate of the state law. One option is to hold that the state law is preempted entirely. However, preemption is disfavored, and a state law should be preempted only to the extent that it is in conflict with federal law. See Weber v. Heaney, 995 F.2d 872, 875 (8th Cir. 1993); Forster, 437 N.W.2d at 658. But given the clear and broad prohibition of the "no lien" language in the federal anti-lien provision, we are not able to ascertain an appropriate limiting construction to the state's medical assistance lien provision. Therefore, we hold that section 256B.042, Minnesota's medical assistance lien statute, is preempted to the extent that it allows a lien for medical assistance paid to be placed on a medical assistance recipient's cause of action before a recipient's death.
II.
Having held that the state cannot place a lien on a medical assistance recipient's personal property on account of medical assistance paid before the recipient's death, we must determine whether the state can otherwise recover under the assignment obtained under section 256B.056, subd. 6, Minnesota's assignment statute. To make this determination, we must juxtapose federal Medicaid law and Minnesota's assignment statute to determine whether compliance with both is also impossible or whether the state law is an obstacle to accomplishment of the purposes of the federal Medicaid scheme.
The Minnesota assignment statute, like the federal assignment law, requires an assignment of the medical assistance recipient's rights to medical expenses. The specific assignment language reads as follows:
The state agency shall require from any applicant or recipient of medical assistance the assignment of any rights to medical support and third party payments. * * * By signing an application for medical assistance, a person assigns to the department of human services all rights the person may have to medical support or payments for medical expenses from any other person or entity on their own or their dependent's behalf and agrees to cooperate with the state in establishing paternity and obtaining third party payments. Minn. Stat. ยง 256B.056, subd. 6.
It also provides that an applicant must agree to apply "all proceeds received or receivable by the person * * * from any third person liable for the costs of medical care * * *." Id. (emphasis added).
In the "all proceeds" sentence, reading the clause "for the costs of medical care" to modify "any third person liable" appears to be the more conventional reading of the language of the statute; therefore, we will first proceed to analyze this interpretation of the language. If under this reading preemption is not required, our analysis of this provision will be complete. However, if we conclude that this reading requires preemption in whole or in part, we will then look further to determine whether the statute is susceptible to another interpretation that does not raise a constitutional defect. See Hince v. O'Keefe, 632 N.W.2d 577, 582 (Minn. 2001) (explaining that we are under an obligation to interpret our statutes to avoid constitutional defects).
Under the foregoing construction of the statute, when "for the costs of medical care" is read to modify "any third person liable," "all proceeds" is not limited to payments received or receivable for medical care and includes any payments ("all proceeds") from third parties who are liable for medical care. Thus, the assignment provision appears to give the
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