Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/16-149_6jfm.pdf
Page Number: 12

Cite as:  581 U. S. ____ (2017) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

Nevils’).

We  made  no  choice  between  the  two  interpretations
set  out  in  McVeigh,  however,  because  the  answer  made 
no  difference  to  the  question  there  presented.    Id.,  at 
698. 
“[E]ven  if  FEHBA’s  preemption  provision  reaches 
contract-based reimbursement claims,” we explained, “that 
provision  is  not  sufficiently  broad  to  confer  federal  juris-
diction.”  Ibid.    Because  §8902(m)(1)  is  a  “choice-of-law 
prescription,” not a “jurisdiction-conferring provision,” id., 
at  697,  we  had  no  cause  to  consider  §8902(m)(1)’s  text, 
context, and purpose, as we do today, see supra, at 6–8.3 

III 
Nevils  further  contends  that,  if  §8902(m)(1)  covers 
subrogation and reimbursement clauses in OPM contracts,
then the statute itself would violate the Supremacy Clause 
by  assigning  preemptive  effect  to  the  terms  of  a  contract,
not to the laws of the United States.  We conclude, however, 
that  the  statute,  not  a  contract,  strips  state  law  of  its 
force. 

Without  §8902(m)(1),  there  would  be  no  preemption  of
state insurance law.  FEHBA contract terms have preemp-
tive  force  only  as  they  “relate  to  the  nature,  provision,  or 
extent  of  coverage  or  benefits  (including  payments  with
respect  to  benefits),”  §8902(m)(1)—i.e.,  when  the  contract 
terms  fall  within  the  statute’s  preemptive  scope.    It  is 
therefore the statute that “ensures that [FEHBA contract]
terms  will  be  uniformly  enforceable  nationwide,  notwith-
standing  any  state  law  relating  to  health  insurance  or
plans.”  Brief  for  United  States  as  Amicus  Curiae  28  (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).

Many  other  federal  statutes  preempt  state  law  in  this
way,  leaving  the  context-specific  scope  of  preemption  to 

—————— 

3 Because the statute alone resolves this dispute, we need not consider

whether Chevron deference attaches to OPM’s 2015 rule.