Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 106

529US1

Unit: $U32

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

Cite as: 529 U. S. 1 (2000)

31

Scalia, J., dissenting

Disputed claims for Social Security beneﬁts always pre-
sent a simple two-party dispute in which the claimant is
seeking a monetary beneﬁt from the Government. A pro-
ceeding under § 405 is correctly described as an action “to
recover on any claim arising under this subchapter. ”
§ 405(h). Disputed claims under the Medicare Act, how-
ever, typically involve three parties—the patient, the pro-
vider, and the Secretary. When the issue involves a dispute
over the patient’s entitlement to beneﬁts, it is fairly charac-
terized as an action “to recover” on a claim that is parallel
to a claim for Social Security beneﬁts. The language in
§ 1395ii that makes § 405(h) applicable to the Medicare Act
“to the same extent as” it applies to the Social Security Act
thus encompasses claims by patients, but does not neces-
sarily encompass providers’ challenges to the Secretary’s
regulations.

In Ringer, the Court, in effect (and, in my view, errone-
ously), treated the patients’ claim as a premature action
“to recover” beneﬁts that was subject to the strictures in
§ 405(h). See 466 U. S., at 620. But in this case, as in Mich-
igan Academy, the plaintiffs are providers, not patients.
Their challenges to the Secretary’s regulations simply do not
fall within the “to recover” language of § 405(h) that was
obviously drafted to describe pecuniary claims. The incor-
poration of that language into the Medicare Act via § 1395ii
provides no textual support for the Court’s decision today.
Moreover, contrary to the Court’s “Pandora’s box” rhetoric,
ante, at 17–18, adherence to the plain meaning of “to re-
cover” would not make it necessary for the Court to revisit
any of its earlier cases. For this reason, as well as the rea-
sons set forth by Justice Thomas, I ﬁnd nothing in the
relevant statutory text that should be construed to bar
this action.

Justice Scalia, dissenting.
I join the opinion of Justice Thomas except for Part III,
and think it necessary to add a few words in explanation