The case is Maxwell-Jolly v. the Independent Living Center of California, in which California providers are challenging the state's proposed 10 percent cut to Medicaid provider payments. Last July, in a brief to the Supreme Court, they argued that a cut so sweeping violates the federal requirements that come with participating in the Medicaid program. Federal law says Medicaid rates must be "sufficient to enlist enough providers" so that Medicaid recipients have the same access to care as other people in the area.

The challenge has split Democrats. The Obama administration, in a rare move, has taken a side on the case: it says that providers don't have the right to take on provider rates in court. That took Medicaid advocates by surprise. "You have the administration providing the argument for why we shouldn't have this other oversight mechanism," says Brietta Clark, a law professor at Loyola University in Los Angeles who specializes in health policy.

Leading Congressional Democrats have taken the exact opposite stance, filing a brief late last Friday urging the Supreme Court to protect providers' right to sue. Seven Democrat signed onto the brief, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). E.Klein

I hope my DNA is good enough for a human/alien hybrid. With my son's visit, and us hanging around with a lot of other children, I think it's time for more.

We're doing review now of math, reading, science, and writing before we head back.

But SOMEBODY knows how to cop a 'tude quick, fast, and in a hurry. Today begins the disabuse of such attitudes. Grandma is giving the review while I'm doing this.

I still remember the dreded words...

"Go outside and get me a switch."

I think the next diary will focus on the empathy I now have for females who have yearly or semi-yearly gynecological visits, mammograms, pap smears, etc.

Any male afraid to get even the prostate 'finger wave' shows less guts than a package of split chicken breasts.

Women, you go through stuff like this every YEAR? Perhaps not the needles, but the invasion?

Was it lit?

VIENNA (AP) -- Was it lit or was it cold? The status of a cigar in Arnold Schwarzenegger's mouth at an Austrian airport could decide whether or not he faces legal action.

Smoking at airports is banned in Austria and an anti-smoking lobby said Tuesday it plans to launch a suit against the former California governor for puffing on a stogie after arriving in June at Salzburg Airport.

But officials suggest the affair will go up in smoke.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief criminally charged with sexually assaulting a hotel housekeeper, was sued by the woman for what her lawyer called "violent and deplorable acts."

Nafissatou Diallo, who emigrated to the U.S. from Guinea, filed the complaint yesterday in New York State Supreme Court in the Bronx, where she lived at the time of the incident. The criminal case against Strauss-Kahn, 62, a onetime French presidential hopeful, is pending in state court in Manhattan.

Diallo, who revealed her identity in media interviews last month, was working at the Sofitel hotel in midtown Manhattan May 14 when she entered Strauss-Kahn's suite, where the incident took place. Strauss-Kahn, whose lawyer has said the encounter wasn't forcible, was arrested and charged with sexual assault and attempted rape.

"Believing that he was immune from the laws of this country, defendant Strauss-Kahn intentionally, brutally and violently sexually assaulted Ms. Diallo and in the process humiliated, degraded, violated and robbed Ms. Diallo of her dignity as a woman," her lawyers said in the complaint.

The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages for physical and psychological harm, damage to Diallo's reputation, career, and mental anguish, for the assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment. Strauss-Kahn has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges and denied any wrongdoing.

Baucus?!?!