Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1023_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 23

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

were used to indicate any other purpose than the disburse-
ment  of  a  sum  of  money  for  the  particular  fiscal  years.” 
Vulte, 233 U. S., at 514.  And especially because the Gov-
ernment had already begun incurring the prior year’s obli-
gation each time Congress enacted a rider, reasonable (and
nonrepealing)  interpretations  exist.    Indeed,  finding  a  re-
peal in these circumstances would raise serious questions 
whether  the  appropriations  riders  retroactively  impaired
insurers’  rights  to  payment.    See  Landgraf  v.  USI  Film 
Products, 511 U. S. 244, 265–266, 280 (1994); see also GAO
Redbook 1–61 to 1–62. 

The relevant agencies’ responses to the riders also under-
mine  the  case  for  an  implied  repeal  here.  Had  Congress 
“clearly expressed” its intent to repeal, one might have ex-
pected HHS or CMS to signal the sea change.  Morton, 417 
U. S.,  at  551.    But  even  after  Congress  enacted  the  first
rider, the agencies reiterated that “the Affordable Care Act
requires the Secretary to make full payments to issuers,” 80
Fed. Reg. 10779, and that “HHS w[ould] record risk corri-
dors  payments  due  as  an  obligation  of  the  United  States
Government for which full payment is required,” CMS, Risk
Corridors Payments for 2015, at 1.  They understood that
profitable insurers’ payments to the Government would not
dispel the Secretary’s obligation to pay unprofitable insur-
ers, even “in the event of a shortfall.”  Ibid. 

Given the Court’s potent presumption in the appropria-
tions context, an implied-repeal-by-rider must be made of 
sterner stuff. 

B 
To be sure, this Court’s implied-repeal precedents reveal 
two situations where the Court has deemed appropriations
measures  irreconcilable  with  statutory  obligations  to  pay. 
But neither one applies here. 

The first line of cases involved appropriations bills that, 
without expressly invoking words of “repeal,” reached that