Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1263diff_868c.pdf
Page Number: 23

6 

GALLARDO v. MARSTILLER 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

be made available in the future.  Put differently, as a tex-
tual matter, this provision extends only to a third party’s 
liability  to  pay  for  services  actually  furnished  by  a  state 
plan.

Congress subsequently enacted two legal tools for a State
to  use  when  seeking  reimbursement,  consistent  with  the
third-party liability provision, for services paid. 

The  first  of  these  tools  is  the  assignment  provision,
§1396k(a)(1)(A),  enacted  in  1977  and  made  mandatory  in
1984.  In that provision, to “assis[t] in the collection of . . . 
payments for medical care,” §1396k(a), Congress required 
each state Medicaid plan to condition eligibility on assign-
ment of “any rights” of the beneficiary “to payment for med-
ical  care  from  any  third  party,”  §1396k(a)(1)(A).    Florida 
rests its argument on the understanding that this language 
confers upon it a right to recover payments designated for
medical  care  regardless  of  whether  those  payments  com-
pensate  for  medical  care  for  which  Florida  actually  has 
paid.

Several textual signals foreclose Florida’s interpretation
of the assignment provision.  For one, the provision, by its 
terms, does not stand alone.  Instead, Congress enacted it 
“[f]or  the  purpose  of  assisting  in  [a  State’s]  collection  of ” 
payments for medical care owed to beneficiaries.  §1396k(a).
It would be anomalous, then, to read the provision to reach 
beyond the third-party liability provision it “assist[s]” in im-
plementing.  Ibid.; see Guam v. United States, 593 U. S. ___, 
___ (2021) (slip op., at 6) (similarly interpreting a statutory 
provision in light of an earlier “anchor provision”).  Support-
ing that understanding, Congress later amended the stat-
ute containing the assignment provision to require benefi-
ciaries “to cooperate with the State in identifying . . . any
third party who may be liable to pay for care and services
available under the plan.”  §1396k(a)(1)(C) (the cooperation
provision).    The  cooperation  provision  echoes  the  third-
party liability provision’s focus on care “available under the