Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 117

529US1

Unit: $U32

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

42

SHALALA v. ILLINOIS COUNCIL ON LONG
TERM CARE, INC.
Thomas, J., dissenting

point that Ringer did not decide. The majority opinion can
therefore claim no support from its asserted “consistency
with the holdings of earlier cases such as Ringer.” Ante,
at 19. Ringer simply does not constitute a holding on the
meaning of § 1395ii; or if it does, the majority has engaged
in the very practice it condemns—a sub silentio overruling
(of Webster v. Fall, supra).

Moreover, the majority’s criticism of my approach as de-
claring a sub silentio overruling is just as well directed at
itself, for Ringer is no less overruled by the majority’s view
of Michigan Academy than by my own. According to the
majority, the Michigan Academy “exception” to § 1395ii ap-
plies where the aggrieved party “can obtain no review at all
unless it can obtain judicial review in a § 1331 action.” Ante,
at 20. Consider how this test would apply to Freeman
Ringer, one of the four plaintiffs in Ringer. Ringer sought
to challenge the Secretary’s policy proscribing reimburse-
ment for a certain type of surgery (a Part A beneﬁts issue),
invoking general federal-question jurisdiction. He had no
concrete reimbursement claim to present, for he did not
possess the ﬁnancial means to pay for the surgery up front
and await reimbursement. Nor, apparently, could he obtain
private ﬁnancing for the surgery. See Ringer, 466 U. S., at
620; id., at 637, n. 24 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
in part and dissenting in part) (“Ringer would like nothing
more than to give the Secretary [the] opportunity [to rule
on a concrete claim for reimbursement]”); Brief for Petition-
It seems to me that Ringer is the paradig-
ers 42–43, n. 23.
matic example of a party who “can obtain no review at all
unless [he] can obtain judicial review in a § 1331 action,”
ante, at 20, such that he plainly would qualify for the Michi-
gan Academy exception to § 1395ii as described by the
majority.

The majority purports to reafﬁrm Ringer in toto, but it
does so only by revising that case to hold that Ringer, not-
withstanding his own inability to obtain judicial review with-