sorry to make you wait so long now probably are may have please the court my name is tom murphy and i represent a hill refraining community and he will river healthcare corporation of this case raises the single issue of whether the communities claims are subject to the jurisdiction stripping provisions of the veterans judicial review act council let me ask you about a word you calling for conscripting provisions i remember the old days it used to be a veteran's claim to go as high as the board of veterans appeals and that was it that was the end there was no judicial review whatsoever and then after the supreme court spoke on the matter congress quickly created a whole new system and there was of veterans claims in article one court and then from there you'd go to the federal circuit which is a circuit court just like this one one of our sister circuits to me it looks like what they did was not strip jurisdiction a creator is stiction in an article three court and they channeled jurisdiction and it's a jurisdiction channeling statute just like it would the tucker act with claims against the federal government for breach of contract they all go to the federal circuit same way they go to the court of claims and then the federal so i don't understand why this is a jurisdiction stripping statute or why it should be viewed with the same turnage however you know i think at the point that the statute basically tells parties sit if you want to review a decision of the secretary he may not go to federal district court you have to start an administrative process  at tells people that gee whiz maybe half or two thirds of the cases we get we don't get the ones that go to the federal circuit what is that patton's court of claim stuff correct  instead you get petitions for review from all the administrative agencies i don't see why this is any different i think it's just at the wrong end of the country i think there's a person in favor of federal court review  got federal court review you've got the federal circuit after you go through an exhaustive in like the administrative process and you don't have review that's just saying you have review in the federal circuit not the ninth circuit and that's correct i think if you go through the about one individual veteran who got shafted but you're talking about one big institution against another big institution well you're i'm talking about it i mean i represent an indian tribe with twenty thousand members in  southern arizona and it's health care corporation i think that the point here and really it goes to the heart of the statute involved which is that for a federal court to hear this case and decide it would not have any effect on any benefit received by any veteran that i don't understand either i mean when the v a provides benefits to a veteran sometimes it does that by saying yeah go to the v a hospital and they'll take care of you and sometimes it does it by saying why you can go to doctor so and so in town and whole send us the bill and we'll take care of it and that's how they provide the benefit just like a lot of federal benefits where the feds have them provided by third parties absolutely are and i think that that's an excellent way to distinguish the statute involved in this case we you know i'm not sure that this needs to affect benefits in the sense in which you just said because the statute says decide all questions of the law in fact necessary to a decision by the secretary under a law that affects to revision of benefits so if the law affects the provision of benefits and the v a makes a decision under that law we don't words so this does not as have to affect benefits it has to be a decision under a law that affects benefits in section twenty five us code section sixteen forty five c does not affect any benefit a veteran receives going back to judge kleinfeld questioned the reimbursement statutes under the v a and they cite a whole bunch in their brief all share common characteristic which is that the v a stands in the shoes for the veterans and ultimately the v a will only pay what the veteran would otherwise pay out of pocket in the event that they receive care from a third party if the veteran is not eligible for reimbursement there personally liable i imagine that if  if the v a has benefits provided by a third party to the veteran there has to be some kind of deal worked out or else a deal imposed by the v a for how much they're go otherwise they're not going to reimburse eight hundred dollars for a twenty minute visit with with a nurse true and the distinction here though your honor is this under section six hundred forty five c the veteran is not personally liable for the charges for health care received that's why v a reimbursement is to a veteran whereas under sixteen forty five see reimbursement is to the united states or a tribe or a tribal health care provider for health care that's provided under the trust obligation of the united states to the indian tribes sounds just like the way medicare works if the doctor medicare patients you can't build a patient for the difference between the medicare reimbursement and the market rate that's great if the same but that's not exactly the way that the care provided by an indian tribe or tribal healthcare provider is provided to eligible native americans within their service population so before section six hundred forty five c veterans received care from the tribe and from tribal health care providers after section six hundred forty five c they received exactly the same benefit the only difference here is which part of federal money goes to pay for that care in that the community contends is not a benefit under section five eleven a and is subject to federal court review it cannot be disputed that gets back well i guess you've already you addressed that that gets back to which court in the congress says federal circuit and charming it cannot be disputed that providing health care to native americans is the united states trust responsibility even if it's done by the community under an indian self determination education assistance act agreement in the house report on the amendments that ultimately became section six hundred forty five c congress made specific findings one of the finance it made was that federal health care services to maintain and improve the health of indians are consonant with and required by the federal government's historical and unique legal relationship with and resulting responsibility to the american indian people in addition in twenty five u s code sixty no to the declaration of the national health care policy indian health care policy congress stated that it was an ak and that in fulfillment of its special trust responsibility and legal obligations to the indians in section sixteen zero two the law provides that the purpose is to insure the highest possible health status for indians and provide all resources necessary to effect that policy unlike other statutes recently considered by this court this ca involves a statute that was expressly enacted pursuant to the united states trust responsibility to indian tribes there is a reason that the statute is in title twenty five not entitle thirty eight you're absolutely right on that and  i agree with you that we're talking about the responsibility to reimburse the indian tribes under this indian tribe statute not the veterans review statute however somewhere in the whole process of reimbursement there has to be how much issue and it seems to me your argument precludes the how much issue i think what you're saying is the v a has to rebirth reimburse the indian tribe for whatever dollar figure the indian tribe puts down on the bill in your honor there may be i mean if they if the matter is remanded to the district court i mean there may be issues involving the how much issue on the other hand how they could get past your analysis of the statute on the other hand when when the v a opposed this law i mean one of the reasons they opposed to debate is because it basically said it gives us no control over how the care of provided to the native americans section six hundred forty five shifts the burden for the discharge of the federal trust  providing health care to native american veterans from the united states and tribes to the department of veterans affairs thus the reimbursement under sixteen forty five c is not for benefits provided to veterans but for health care provided to native american veterans under the trust responsibility to the extent that the v a is required to reimburse under the trust responsibility the community believes that's well beyond the scope of section five eleven a and if you think about the nature of the claims made in the communities complaint and in the end the in the scope of those claims it seems fairly in congress to to require the community to the v a to pay the indian hospital it would have to determine whether the claim by the indian hospital was an appropriate individual benefits request so that if for example it was eight hundred dollars for a twenty minute visit with a nurse at the v a would be free to say this exceeds our standards for payment by other providers  honor the plain language of the statute contains no restrictions on it it simply says that the v a will will pay the indian tribes united states for the trouble health care providers for the care provided so there's not  any limitations such as what i meant by saying that under your interpretation the v a would have no authority to review the amount of the claim you know i think in the absence of some separate agreement between the parties i don't think the statute gives them that authority i think it imposes the same trust responsibility that the united states has currently through indian health service on to the v a as i recall the v a s position throughout was you know we'll be glad to reimburse the tribes for the provision of medical care through the indian hospitals let's negotiate the agreement for how much for what care and the indian hospital said no we don't have to but not exactly on i think the position i think the position of of healer river health care corporation was that that the template the boilerplate agreement that the v a was providing to the tribes was inadequate because it didn't cover all of the care that the tribes provide to eligible distinguished as are many of the other cases because even though those cases speak in broad language ultimately they all came down to to a proposition which is that that they would require review of decisions in the context of an individual veterans clime this case requires no such analysis by the district court and in some cases i think below that the appellate courts have decided or in other circuits those cases may have required the courts evaluate thousands of claims all the community is is asking here is that the district court enforce the statute as written and as congress intended do you think you'll have me either side and you save some time morning may please the court or myron for the government the claimant issue here is a request by the community for reimbursement for services provided to specific veterans for specific services dating back to two thousand and ten and going forward and they've asked for an injunction would compel v a to pay for those services to the extent that that is a consideration of individual benefits claims for each of those individual visits what the congress has said is that review of those kinds of claims goes through the exclusive administrative and judicial review process sees laid out in section five eleven i might also point out that section five eleven b also provides for review of challenges to v a s rules and regulations directly before the federal circuit so to the extent the community wish to challenge the policy at issue we would have arguments certainly about final agency finally agency action and things like that but a claim like that could be brought directly in the federal circuit but what you cannot do is bring claim in district court and seek to litigate this question that bears on a decision by the secretary as it affects decisions related to veterans benefits in district court and if i might mention also the question of how much is certainly an issue and i think underscores the point that what they're asking for is reimbursement for services provided and there this case would raise the question of how much money is provided for those services what kinds of services are covered  what kinds of veterans are eligible for those services and those are the exact consideration that this court and others have said means that this claim is subject to the channeling requirements in section five eleven a if i might also point out as the district court correctly concluded even assuming the community is correct about their interpretation of section six hundred forty five and it is interpreted as broadly as they claim that it is that does not bear on this court's determination of the scope of section five eleven a and it does not affect whether or not this claim is properly reviewed before the before this court or before the federal circuit so to the extent that what they're asking for is reimbursement for services as i said the proper thing to do would have been to file a claim for reimbursement and to litigate that claim and whether or not a sharing agreement is necessary for reimbursement to be paid through the administrative engineers will review processes laid out by congress if the court has no furth questions i am a little curious let's say that an indian tribe files a claim with the v a for reimbursement for a year's worth of services medical services provided to veterans and it covers fifty thousand veterans what happens and is the v a have a system where they either sample the claims or review each one or review each hundredth claim or use a random number generator and then they look at it and see whether the claims are for people that they provide health care to veterans for and what the charges should be so my understanding is that usually those claims are filed individually and i understand that they're seeking to challenges for statutory legal question so perhaps they file an initial claim in litigate that question through the process there to the extent they're seeking to challenge it a broad policy determination as i said there are other avenues for that kind of challenge but the other haven't you for that kind of could file a challenge as a direct petition for direct view as i said in the federal circuit challenging rules and regulations issued by the v into this kind of sharing agreement that's at issue here with the v a and is receiving reimbursements for the services facility facilitated through that agreement but assuming a tribal provider wanted to challenge the scope of these kinds of agreements or the question of whether or not they're required for reimbursement to flow under section six hundred forty five what they would do is file a claim for reimbursement with the v a for services provided that claim would be denied because the position is that this kind of sharing agreement is required before reimbursement is paid and then they would seek to appeal that through the administrative and judicial review process provided for in the v j array and if i could point out their position is that they're entitled to reimbursement dating back to two thousand and ten they haven't provided any explanation for why they haven't sought to litigate this through the v jerry system prior to now at any time during the last eight years they certainly would have been entitled to file that kind of requests for reimbursement and to litigate that question through the v gerry scheme at any point in the last as i said eight years since the statute went into effect said we are going to deny any and every claim that's made individually until you sign our sharing our template agreement and that is is their position with you or no why why well i think one thing that could potentially occur is the v a could potentially argue with the end its administrative process that it lacks jurisdiction within its administrative process to grant the relief that the community seeks in its complaint which i think is is is also been the v a s position if you look at the v a s administrative process there are at least three points that i like to make first it was designed for individual claims involving veterans this case is not required to decayed in a single claim second it was designed to have courts for technical issues involving v a benefits this case involves an issue of statutory interpretation and then finally the cases in this the issues in this case are not suited for the v a s non adversarial system but as you could see from the nature of the complaint they're definitely suited for the adversarial system that this for decision and that completes arguments for this morning