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26 MAINE COMMUNITY HEALTH OPTIONS v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

U. S.,  at  13,  16;  Bowen  v.  Massachusetts,  487  U. S.  879, 
900–908 (1988). 

B 
Petitioners clear each hurdle: The Risk Corridors statute 
is  fairly  interpreted  as  mandating  compensation  for  dam-
ages, and neither exception to the Tucker Act applies. 

1 
Rarely has the Court determined whether a statute can
“fairly  be  interpreted  as  mandating  compensation  by  the 
Federal Government.”  Mitchell, 463 U. S., at 216–217 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).  Likely this is because so-
called money-mandating provisions are uncommon, see M.
Solomson, Court of Federal Claims: Jurisdiction, Practice, 
and Procedure 4–18 (2016), and because Congress has at its
disposal several blueprints for conditioning and limiting ob-
ligations, see n. 7, supra; see also GAO Redbook 2–22 to 2– 
24, 2–54 to 2–58.  But Congress used none of those tools in 
§1342.  The Risk Corridors statute is one of the rare laws 
permitting a damages suit in the Court of Federal Claims. 
Here again §1342’s mandatory text is significant.  Statu-
tory  “ ‘shall  pay’  language”  often  reflects  congressional  in-
tent “to create both a right and a remedy” under the Tucker
Act.  Bowen, 487 U. S., at 906, n. 42; see also, e.g., id., at 
923  (Scalia,  J.,  dissenting)  (“[A]  statute  commanding  the 
payment  of  a  specified  amount  of  money  by  the  United 
States  impliedly  authorizes  (absent  other  indication)  a
claim for damages in the defaulted amount”); United States 
v.  Testan,  424  U. S.  392,  404  (1976)  (suggesting  that  the 
Back Pay Act, 5 U. S. C. §5596, may permit damages suits 
under the Tucker Act “in carefully limited circumstances”); 
Mitchell, 463 U. S., at 217 (similar).  Section 1342’s triple 
mandate—that the HHS Secretary “shall establish and ad-
minister” the program, “shall provide” for payment accord-
ing  to  the  statutory  formula,  and  “shall  pay”  qualifying