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Page Number: 13.0

10 

CALIFORNIA v. TEXAS 

Opinion of the Court 

Last, the federal respondents raised for the first time a
novel alternative theory of standing on behalf of the indi-
vidual plaintiffs in their merits brief.  (The dissent, alone,
puts forward a similar novel theory on behalf of the state
plaintiffs.)  That  theory  was  not  directly  argued  by  the 
plaintiffs in the courts below, see 945 F. 3d, at 385–386, and 
n. 29, and was nowhere presented at the certiorari stage.
We  accordingly  decline  to  consider  it.  Cf.  Adarand  Con-
structors, Inc. v. Mineta, 534 U. S. 103, 109–110 (2001) (per 
curiam);  see  also  Cutter  v.  Wilkinson,  544  U. S.  709,  718, 
n. 7 (2005). 

B 
Next,  we turn to the state plaintiffs.  We conclude that 
Texas and the other state plaintiffs have similarly failed to
show that they have alleged an “injury fairly traceable to
the  defendant’s  allegedly  unlawful  conduct.”    Cuno,  547 
U. S., at 342 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis
added).  They claim two kinds of pocketbook injuries.  First, 
they allege an indirect injury in the form of the increased
use of (and therefore cost to) state-operated medical insur-
ance programs.  Second, they claim a direct injury resulting
from a variety of increased administrative and related ex-
penses required, they say, by the minimum essential cover-
age provision, along with other provisions of the Act that, 
they add, are inextricably “ ‘interwoven’ ” with it.  Brief for 
Respondent-Cross Petitioner States 39. 

1 
First, the state plaintiffs claim that the minimum essen-
tial coverage provision has led state residents subject to it 
to  enroll  in  state-operated  or  state-sponsored  insurance 
programs such as Medicaid, see 42 U. S. C. §§1396–1396w,
the  Children’s  Health  Insurance  Program  (CHIP),  see
§1397aa, and health insurance programs for state employ-
ees.  The state plaintiffs say they must pay a share of the