Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 111.0

529US1

Unit: $U32

[10-04-01 09:20:53] PAGES PGT: OPIN

36

SHALALA v. ILLINOIS COUNCIL ON LONG
TERM CARE, INC.
Thomas, J., dissenting

B

We squarely addressed § 1395ii for the ﬁrst time in our
1986 decision in Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family
Physicians, 476 U. S. 667. The Secretary had adopted a
regulation that authorized the payment of Part B beneﬁts in
different amounts for similar physicians’ services. An asso-
ciation of family physicians and several individual doctors
ﬁled suit to challenge this regulation.
Id., at 668. These
plaintiffs asserted no concrete claim to Part B beneﬁts, for
judicial review of such a claim was clearly foreclosed by the
statute as interpreted in Erika; they instead invoked
federal-question jurisdiction. Our unanimous opinion 6 in
their favor began by rejecting the Secretary’s contention
that the provisions construed in Erika impliedly precluded
review not only of beneﬁt amount determinations under
Part B, but also of challenges against the Secretary’s meth-
odologies for determining such amounts. 476 U. S., at 673.
The “precisely drawn” provisions on which we had focused
in Erika did not support the Secretary’s proposed inference,
as they “simply d[id] not speak to challenges mounted
against the method by which such amounts are to be deter-
mined.”

476 U. S., at 675.

We then turned to the Secretary’s argument that § 405(h),
incorporated by § 1395ii into the Medicare Act, expressly
precludes a claimant from resorting to general
federal-
question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331. The Secre-
tary contended that under Salﬁ, supra, at 756–762, and
Ringer, supra, at 614–616, “the third sentence of § 405(h) by
its terms prevents any resort to the grant of general
federal-question jurisdiction contained in 28 U. S. C. § 1331.”
476 U. S., at 679. The plaintiffs responded that § 405(h)’s
third sentence precludes use of § 1331 only when Congress
has provided speciﬁc procedures for judicial review of ﬁnal

6 Then-Justice Rehnquist did not participate.