California Healthline: California Lawsuit Aims To Protect Spouses Of Disabled From Financial Ruin (7/10/2017) Justice in Aging, along with partner advocacy groups, filed a lawsuit against the State of California for failing to implement a Medicaid federal spousal impoverishment law meant to protect patients and their partners from becoming impoverished while paying for in-home care. Plaintiffs seek to compel the State of California to implement the law back to January 1, 2014, to notify individuals who potentially were eligible for the protections of their rights, and to reimburse them for any out-of-pocket expenses they paid that should have been free.