Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05400/USCOURTS-caDC-94-05400-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 12, 1996 Decided April 23, 1996

No. 94-5400

MARSHA FRANCINE MODDERNO,

APPELLANT

v.

JAMES B. KING, DIRECTOR, U.S. OFFICE OF

PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT AGENCY,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cv01679)

Marsha F. Modderno, pro se, was on the briefs for appellant.

Sharon L. Volckhausen,student counsel, argued the cause on the side of appellant and filed the briefs

for amicus curiae appointed by the court. With her on the briefs were Steven H. Goldblatt, amicus

curiae, Michelle J. Anderson, attorney, and Deanne L. Chun, student counsel.

Cynthia A. Schnedar, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee. With her on

the briefs were Eric H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, R. Craig Lawrence, and Michael J.

Ryan, Assistant United States Attorneys.

Douglas S. McDowell and Ann E. Reesman were on the brief for amicus curiae Equal Employment

Advisory Council.

Before: WILLIAMS, GINSBURG and SENTELLE, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WILLIAMS.

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge: Marsha Francine Modderno suffers from a mental illness that

required her hospitalization from 1988 to 1991. During this period she was covered by the Foreign

Service Benefit Plan by virtue of her status asthe formerspouse of a Foreign Service officer. In 1990

the Plan imposed a number of limitations on benefits for mental health care, limits not paralleled by

similar restrictions on benefits for physical illness. Of these restrictions, the parties focus on a

$75,000 lifetime maximum for mental health benefits; no one argues that the other limits (such as

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different thresholdsfor catastrophic coverage) pose any distinctive issues. Modderno claims that the

limitations on mental health benefits violate § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, which

prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in any program conducted by an executive agency

of the United States. Because the Office of Personnel Management ("OPM") accepted the Plan in

the exercise ofits duty to contract for federal employees' health insurance plans, see 5 U.S.C. § 8902,

the Plan is subject to § 504.

The district court dismissed Modderno's complaint on the ground that it failed to state a claim

upon which relief could be granted. Modderno v. King, 871 F. Supp. 40 (D.D.C. 1994). Modderno

appeals the dismissal, arguing first that the version of § 504 in effect at the time OPM contracted for

the new limits prohibitsit from imposing a limit on mental health benefitsin the absence of a matching

limit regarding physical illness. Alternatively, Modderno argues that a 1992 amendment of § 504,

importing standards from the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA") to § 504, prohibits

what OPM has done.

In addition to these arguments, Modderno argues more generally that differential treatment

of mental and physical illness is wrong-headed both as a matter of basic justice and from the

perspective of a long-term prudential calculus. She says, for example, that "what may be perceived

as providing equal benefits to all (such as providing the same mental benefits to everyone in a health

care plan, for instance) is not actually providing equal benefitsto all when the effect isto prevent one

class from achieving equal access to fundamental rights." And she urges that "[t]he growing body

ofsocialresearch showsthat the costs of treating the mental[ly] ill are far less than the ultimate costs

of not treating them, for workers and employers alike." Whatever the merit of these broader

arguments, we must leave them for resolution in other spheres, such as the political branches of

government, markets, or the activities of eleemosynary institutions. Confining ourselves to

Modderno's legal claims under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, we conclude that the district court

correctly dismissed the complaint.

I. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act provides:

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No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States ... shall, solely

by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from ... participation in, be denied the

benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any ... program or activity

conducted by any Executive agency....

29 U.S.C. § 794. The government conceded for purposes of the district court's ruling on its motion

to dismissthat Modderno is "otherwise qualified" to participate in the Plan (apparently asthe former

spouse of a covered employee) and that she is a person with a disability. See Modderno, 871 F.

Supp. at 42. Thus the only question under § 504 is whether the Plan's differential treatment of mental

and physical illness excludes Modderno from participation in, denies her the benefits of, or subjects

her to discrimination within the meaning of the statute.

Modderno's broadest argument is that the Plan violates § 504 because it provides "unequal

benefits" to persons with mental illness. Although Modderno does not offer a yardstick by which to

measure inequality, we may fairly assume that the restrictions cause inequality, in some sense of the

word, as between those disabled by mental illness and persons disabled only by physical impairments

or not disabled at all. The question, however, is whether the probable inequality is the sort of harm

the Rehabilitation Act was intended to redress. The Supreme Court has held unanimously that it is

not. Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287 (1985). The Court in Alexander concluded that Tennessee's

generalized limitations on Medicaid payments, which fell disproportionately on disabled individuals

because of their greater medical needs, were not subject to challenge under § 504 merely because of

that disproportion:

Section 504 seeks to assure evenhanded treatment and the opportunity for

handicapped individualsto participate in and benefit from programsreceiving federal

assistance. The Act does not, however, guarantee the handicapped equal results from

the provision of state Medicaid, even assuming some measure of equality of health

could be constructed.

Id. at 304 (citation omitted).

Amicus curiae for Modderno would distinguish Alexander on the principle that the limits

disputed here constitute a "facial discrimination" between different types of disability (mental and

other), whereas Alexander addressed an across-the-board limit on the number of inpatient hospital

daysfor whichTennessee's Medicaid programwould grant reimbursement. Because of the supposed

facial discrimination, amicus arguesthat the disputed limits are invalid unless "supported by actuarial

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1We note, however, that while Alexander assumed (without deciding) the viability of disparate

impact analysis under the Rehabilitation Act, its holdingthat generalized Medicaid limits did not

violate § 504 notwithstanding their disproportionate effect on the disabledwould seem to rule

out a successful § 504 disparate impact claim based on the terms of an insurance plan. In refusing

to rule out disparate impact analysis as a general matter, the Court referred not to insurance

coverage but to such matters as architectural barriers, job qualifications, and access to public

transportation and educational services. Alexander, 469 U.S. at 297. 

data."

The first difficulty with this view is that the limits contained in the Plan do not in any way

track the Rehabilitation Act's definition of disabilitythe only ground on which the Act forbids

discrimination. The Act defines an "individual with a disability" as "any person who (i) has a physical

or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more ofsuch person's major life activities, (ii)

has a record of such an impairment, or (iii) is regarded as having such an impairment." 29 U.S.C. §

706(8)(B). Thus, the phrase "by reason of her or his disability" in § 504's anti-discrimination

command presumably means by reason of one of the things described in (i), (ii) or (iii) of 29 U.S.C.

§ 706(8)(B). While the definition mentions physical and mental impairments, it appears to do so only

by way of assuring that the remedies provided by the Act are comprehensive, rather than to assure

any kind of equality as between sufferers of mental, as opposed to physical, disability. The statute

thusfocuses on disability, yet the Plan in no way usesthat criterion, as would, for example, a plan that

distinguished between disabling and non-disabling mental illness. Rather the Plan distinguishes

between mental and physical illnessa distinction that seems no more pertinent to the concerns of

the Act than would a special provision on lower back pain, so long as the provision did not

distinguish between lower back pain that "substantially limit[ed] one or more of [a] person's major

life activities" and lower back pain that did not have such an impact. We are of course not saying that

distinctions not framed in terms of "disability" per se are ipso facto valid under the Act; Alexander's

refusal to rule out disparate impact claims under the Act makes such a position impossible. See 469

U.S. at 292-99.1 But we are saying that a plan's mere reference to a particular impairment or class

of impairments, with no use of the statutory concept of disability (or some close surrogate), is not

enough to catapult it into the "facially discriminatory" category.

Even if the coverage limits in the Plan were thought to constitute "facial discrimination" on

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2The Court in Alexander emphasized that the limit on reimbursements did not deny the

disabled "meaningful access" to Tennessee's Medicaid program. 469 U.S. at 302. A $75,000

lifetime maximum would likewise surely satisfy Alexander 's requirement that the disabled "benefit

meaningfully from the coverage they will receive." Id.

3Distinctions among types of disability would violate the Equal Protection Clause if they

lacked any rational basis, but no one claims this to be the case here. 

the basis of disability, however, that would neither invalidate the Plan nor condition its validity on any

kind of actuarial justification such as amicus proposes. Under Alexander, a covered insurance

provider is clearly permitted to limit the lifetime benefits for all illness, mental and physical, to some

fixed amount such as the $75,000 that OPM has adopted here for mental illness; such a limit is in

principle the same asthe limit on reimbursementsfor hospitalstaysin Alexander.2 A provider is thus

also permitted to impose similar limits on both the lifetime benefits for mental illness and, separately,

for physical illness. But according to the amicus's argument, the fact that OPM has not imposed a

lifetime benefit limit for physical illness somehow transforms the Plan from one that would not

discriminate on the basis of disability(or otherwise transgressthe requirements of § 504) into one that

does. And this would be the result even though the disabled as a classmentally and physically

disabled individuals in the aggregateare better off under the latter arrangement than under a plan

in which mental and physical health benefits are each subject to a lifetime limit of $75,000. We simply

cannot believe that a statute enacted for the benefit of the disabled produces this result. If § 504

permits across-the-board limits on coverage, as Alexander holds, then it cannot forbid partial limits

that leave some disabled individuals better off and the remainder no worse off. Cf. Traynor v.

Turnage, 485 U.S. 535, 549 (1988) ("There is nothing in the Rehabilitation Act that requiresthat any

benefit extended to one category of handicapped persons also be extended to all other categories of

handicapped persons."). Thus, while the Supreme Court in Alexander accorded only a "Cf." cite to

Doe v. Colautti, 592 F.2d 704 (3d Cir. 1979), which upheld durational limits applicable only to

inpatient care for psychiatric problems, see Alexander, 469 U.S. at 304, distinctions between mental

and physical care are no more vulnerable under § 504 than are completely generalized limits.3

The peculiarity ofthe amicus's argument is underscored by the absence of any claimabout the

correlation between mental and physical disabilities. We are given no reason to believe that the two

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are inversely relatedthat the incidence of physicaldisabilityis anylessfor the mentallydisabled than

for persons not mentally disabled. If mental disabilities are positively correlated with physical ones,

then amicus's argument for invalidation of the selective $75,000 lifetime limit would (if successful)

disproportionately harm precisely the class sought to be protectedmentally disabled

individualsvis-a-vis the valid across-the-board $75,000 limit. In any event, whatever the

relationship between mental and physical disabilities, invalidation of the selective lifetime limit would

make both the disabled as a class and the mentally disabled as a class worse off. Section 504 cannot

require such a result.

Perhapsmentallydisabled individuals aremore vulnerable to discriminationthanthe physically

disabled. If so, then Congress might wish to enact a statute affording the mentally disabled special

protection. But the Rehabilitation Act is simply not such a statute.

We note, finally, that the amicus never explainsjust what sort of "actuarial data" might rescue

fromcondemnation the sort of distinction drawn here, were the distinction deemed to make out some

sort of prima facie violation of § 504. Would it be a comparison between the average lifetime costs

of mental disability as opposed to the corresponding average for physical disability, so that the

$75,000 cap for mental health benefits would survive only if average lifetime physical disability costs

were $75,000 or lessthereby implementing a judgment that sufferers from mental and physical

disabilities are non-overlapping classes that should enjoy some sort of average equality of dollar

benefits? Any such calculation would be highly sensitive to the definition of "disability." If the

definitionwere relativelybroad, the average cost would tend to be lower than under a more restrictive

definition. Thus survival of a limit on mental health benefits might well depend on which type of

disabilitymental or physicalfeatured the larger proportion of less serious conditions. The

computation would, moreover, do nothing to evaluate the restriction on mental health benefits by

reference to the sort of criteriasuch as avoidance of moral hazard and the aggregation of

independent (but similar) risksthat enable insurers to maximize the availability of insurance. See

George L. Priest, "The Current Insurance Crisis and Modern Tort Law," 96 Yale L.J. 1521, 1539-50

(1987). But we have no reason to try to sort out these collateral problems because, as discussed

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above, amicus's theory that distinctions in coverage must be defended by actuarial data is untenable

under Alexander.

Modderno's pro se complaint contains, in addition to the primary claim based on differential

treatment of mental and physical illness, an allegation of intentional discrimination against the

mentally disabled on the part of OPM. While a complaint may not be dismissed unless the plaintiff

can prove no set of facts that would entitle him or her to relief, the complaint must, to survive a

motion to dismiss, give the defendant "fair notice of what the plaintiff's claimis and the grounds upon

which it rests." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957). The only fact alleged by Modderno in

support of her claim of intentional discrimination is that during the negotiations over the 1991 Plan,

which imposed the new limitations onmentalhealth benefits, OPM urged the administrator ofthe plan

to cut back on such benefits. We are unable to see how the fact that someone advocated a step that

ended up being taken could create an inference of intentional discriminationunless, of course, the

step were itself independently discriminatory. As the limits on mental health benefits have not been

shown to be discriminatory, the "intent" allegation adds nothing. Thus Modderno's complaint fails

to state a claim under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as it stood before its amendment in 1992.

II. 1992 Amendments to the Rehabilitation Act

Modderno argues that even if her complaint fails to state a claim under § 504 prior to its

amendment in 1992, that amendment saves her case. The 1992 amendment incorporates into § 504

the standards of several sections of the ADA:

The standards used to determine whether this section has been violated in a

complaint alleging employment discriminationunder thissectionshallbe the standards

applied under title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ... and the

provisions of sections 501 through 504, and 510, of the Americans with Disabilities

Act of 1990 ..., as such sections relate to employment.

Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-569, § 506, 106 Stat. 4344 (codified at

29 U.S.C. § 794(d)).

OPM advances a number of arguments (none of them jurisdictional) as to why the 1992

provision is inapplicable to this case. Even assuming it does apply, however, the new language only

reinforces our reading of the original § 504. We therefore bypass those objections and move directly

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to the merits of the claim under amended § 504.

Title I of the ADA prohibits discrimination in employment, including any use of "standards,

criteria, or methods of administration ... that have the effect of discrimination on the basis of

disability." 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a) & (b)(3)(A). Whatever that might add to or subtract from

Modderno's claim, § 501(c) of the ADA creates a qualified safe-harbor for insurance plans. It says

that the provisions in title I shall not be construed to prohibit or restrict (among other things) "a

person or organization covered by this chapter from establishing, sponsoring, observing or

administering the terms of a bona fide benefit plan that is not subject to State laws that regulate

insurance," provided that this saving provision "shall not be used as a subterfuge to evade the

purposes" of the ADA. 42 U.S.C. § 12201(c).

It is undisputed that the Plan, which is provided by an agency of the federal government, is

a bona fide benefit plan not subject to state laws that regulate insurance. Thus, even if the general

language of the amendment implied that the Plan would be illegal in the absence of some actuarial

showing (a claimon which we need not pass), it passes muster under the § 501(c)safe-harborso long

as it doesn't run afoul of the exception for subterfuges.

The Supreme Court has twice interpreted similar "subterfuge" language in the Age

Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"). See United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, 434

U.S. 192 (1977); Pub. Employees Retirement System v. Betts, 492 U.S. 158 (1989). "Subterfuge,"

the Court has said, is to be given "its ordinary meaning as "a scheme, plan, stratagem, or artifice of

evasion.' " Betts, 492 U.S. at 167 (quoting McMann, 434 U.S. at 203). In both McMann and Betts,

the Court concluded that this meaning of subterfuge implied that benefit plans adopted before the

enactment of the ADEA could not be subterfuges to evade its purposes. McMann, 434 U.S. at 203;

Betts, 492 U.S. at 168. In McMann, for instance, where the plan at issue had been adopted in 1941,

long before the enactment of the ADEA, the Court observed that "[t]o spell out an intent in 1941 to

evade a statutory requirement not enacted until 1967 attributes, at the very least, a remarkable

prescience to the employer." 434 U.S. at 203. The Court refused to require an employer to

demonstrate a business purpose for a plan adopted prior to the ADEA to show that the plan was not

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a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act. Id.

Here, the coverage limitations challenged by Modderno were adopted in 1990, before the

1992 amendment importing the ADA standardsinto § 504 ofthe RehabilitationAct had been enacted

or even proposed in committee. See H.R. Rep. No. 822, 102nd Cong., 2nd Sess. (1992) (stating that

subcommittee hearings leading to the Rehabilitation Act Amendments began in September of 1991,

and that the bill was introduced on the floor in June of 1992). Furthermore, no one suggests that

OPM modified the Plan because of some expectation that passage of the ADA would lead to

amendment of the Rehabilitation Act. Accordingly, under McMann and Betts, the limitations in the

Plan cannot constitute a subterfuge to evade congressional purposes.

It might be argued that Congress'sresponse to the decisionsin McMann and Betts undermines

our reliance on their interpretation of the term "subterfuge." After McMann upheld a mandatory

retirement plan because of its pre-ADEA origin, Congress amended the Act to make clear that such

plans were not permitted regardless ofwhether theyran afoul ofthe subterfuge requirement. See Age

Discrimination in Employment Act Amendments of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-256, § 2(a), 92 Stat. 189

(codified at 29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(2) (1985), amended by Older Workers Benefit Protection Act of

1990, Pub. L. No. 101-433, § 103(1), 104 Stat. 978) (incorporating a proviso into the subterfuge

section according to which "no ... employee benefit plan shall require or permit the involuntary

retirement of any individual ... because of the age of such individual"). After Betts, Congress opted

to remove the "subterfuge" language fromthe ADEAentirely. Older Workers Benefit Protection Act

§ 103(1) (codified at 29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(2)).

In fact the congressional responsesto McMann and Betts do not undermine, and indeed may

strengthen, the argument for interpreting "subterfuge" in the ADA consistently with those decisions.

First, as to McMann, the response did not indicate a rejection of the Court's understanding of

"subterfuge" generallythe subterfuge language wasleft undisturbedbut only of its application to

pre-ADEA mandatory retirement plans. See Betts, 492 U.S. at 167 ("Congress changed the specific

result of McMann by adding a final clause to [29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(2)], but it did not change the

controlling, general language of the statute.") The response to Betts presumably does reflect a

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decision that "subterfuge," as understood by the Court, was not a suitable way to accomplish the

congressional purpose in the context of the ADEA. But Betts had been decided, and the response

to it enacted, before Congress adopted the "subterfuge" language of § 501(c) of the ADA. Thus

when Congress chose the term "subterfuge" for the insurance safe-harbor of the ADA, it was on full

alert asto what the Court understood the word to mean and possessed (obviously) a full grasp of the

linguistic devices available to avoid that meaning.

The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission ("EEOC"), in a document setting forth

"Interim Enforcement Guidance" on the application of the ADA to disability-based distinctions in

employer-provided health insurance, has offered a different interpretation of the "subterfuge"

provision. "Subterfuge," according to the EEOC, refers to "disability-based disparate treatment that

is not justified by the risks or costs associated with the disability." Equal Opportunity Employment

Comm'n, InterimEnforcement Guidance, N-915.002 (June 8, 1993), at 11; see also id. at 7 (defining

"disability-based distinctions" as including distinctions among different disabilities as well as

distinctions betweendisabilities and other conditions). Thus the EEOC believes that a disability-based

distinction is invalid unless the employer supports it by some sort of cost-based showing, with the

details of implementation left obscure. But the Department of Labor had taken a somewhat similar

position on the ADEA "subterfuge" provision at issue in Betts,saying that " "a plan or plan provision

which prescribes lower benefits for older employees on account of age is not a "subterfuge" within

the meaning of [29 U.S.C. § 623(f)(2)], provided that the lower level of benefits is justified by

age-related cost considerations.' " Betts, 492 U.S. at 170 (quoting 29 CFR § 1625.10(d) (1988))

(emphasis added). The Labor Department interpretation could not prevail because, even assuming

deference to the agency under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837 (1984), the

cost-justification requirement was "at odds with the plain language of the statute itself." 492 U.S.

at 171. Except for a distinction cutting even more against the agency interpretation here (that there

may be no coherent way of performing a useful actuarial calculation for mental and physical

disabilities), the cases appear identical.

Because the coverage limitations challenged by Modderno were enacted before the 1992

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amendment of § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (and there is no suggestion that their enactment was

prompted by an expectation of amendment), they do not fall into the subterfuge exception to the

ADA's safe-harbor. Thus, whether or not Modderno stated a claim under the 1992 amendment of

§ 504 apart from the safe-harbor provisiona question on which we express no opinionthe

coverage limitations challenged by Modderno cannot violate amended § 504.

* * *

The judgment of the district court dismissing the complaint is

Affirmed.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge, concurring: I agree with the court's dismissal of Modderno's claim.

The disparate treatment of which she complainsisthat between physical impairment on the one hand

and mental impairment on the other. That disparity is permissible under § 504 of the Rehabilitation

Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, because it is unrelated to disability, defined as a substantial limitation upon one

or more of a person's major life activities, id. § 706(8)(B)(i).

I write separately because I believe that by resting its affirmance upon this unobjectionable

point, the court misses the more general and more fundamental principle: only by providing less

coverage to some or all persons who are currently disabled does an insurance plan contravene § 504.

As a result of this oversight the court mistakenly suggests, albeit in dicta, that a plan might violate

§ 504 if it covered a non-disabling illness but not a disabling version of the same illness. See Court

Op. at 5.

In this case the same insurance coverage was made available to all regardless of handicap;

there is no indication and no claim that the benefits were only formally but not meaningfully available

to the handicapped. See Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 302 (1985) (disabled must "benefit

meaningfully from the coverage they will receive"). Unless some coverage is denied to persons who

currently have a disabling condition while at the same time granted to those who do not currently

have a disabling condition, or denied to persons with a particular disability but not to persons with

a different disability, there is no discrimination on account of disability. Equal coverage for all is

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non-discriminatory. That is the fundamental ground upon which Modderno's claim fails.

True enough, some facially neutral coverage may lead to significantly disparate outcomes.

In Alexander the Supreme Court refused to rule out a disparate impact claim. Id. at 299. If it can

be demonstrated that seemingly equal coverage necessarily and significantly favors the currently

non-disabled over the currentlydisabled, and ifthe differences are so substantial as effectively to deny

the disabled meaningful access to coverage, then perhaps a disparate impact claim can be made out.

InAlexandertheCourt approved a reductionininpatient coverage that left "both handicapped

and nonhandicapped Medicaid users with identical and effective hospital services fully available for

their use, with both classes of userssubject to the same durational limitation." Id. at 302. The Court

went on to note that "[s]ection 504 does not require the State to alter ... the benefit being offered

simply to meet the reality that the handicapped have greater medical needs." Id. at 303. Further:

"The [Rehabilitation] Act does not ... guarantee the handicapped equal results," id. at 304, nor is §

504 intended "to make major inroads on the States' longstanding discretion to choose the proper mix

of amount, scope, and duration limitations on services covered by state Medicaid," id. at 306.

Indeed, "to require that the sort of broad-based distributive decision ... always be made in the way

most favorable, or least disadvantageous, to the handicapped, even when the same benefit is

meaningfully and equally offered to them, would be to impose a virtually unworkable requirement

on state Medicaid workers." Id. at 308 (emphasis added).

With Alexander as our guide, it seemsto me that § 504 does not invalidate an insurance plan

merely because it covers a particular illness up to the point at which it becomes disabling, but not

thereafter, nor because it excludes coverage of particular illnesses that are inherently disabling. As

long as the Foreign Service Benefit Plan offers the same coverage to all insureds, regardless of

disability, it cannot be said to discriminate on the basis of disability.

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