Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 92

529US1

Unit: $U32

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

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

17

Opinion of the Court

tions’—i. e., those [matters] . . . remitted ﬁnally and ex-
clusively to adjudication by private insurance carriers
in a ‘fair hearing.’ By the same token, matters which
Congress did not delegate to private carriers, such as
challenges to the validity of the Secretary’s instruc-
tions and regulations, are cognizable in courts of law.”
Id., at 680 (footnote omitted).

(Emphasis added.)

The Court’s words do not limit the scope of § 405(h) itself
to instances where a plaintiff, invoking § 1331, seeks review
of an “amount determination.” Rather, the Court said that
it would “not pass on the meaning of § 405(h) in the abstract.”
Ibid. (emphasis added).
Instead it focused upon the Medi-
care Act’s cross-referencing provision, § 1395ii, which makes
§ 405(h) applicable “to the same extent as” it is “applicable” to
the Social Security Act.
It interpreted
that phrase as applying § 405(h) “mutatis mutandis,” i. e.,
“[a]ll necessary changes having been made.” Black’s Law
Dictionary 1039 (7th ed. 1999). And it applied § 1395ii with
one important change of detail—a change produced by not
applying § 405(h) where its application to a particular cate-
gory of cases, such as Medicare Part B “methodology” chal-
lenges, would not lead to a channeling of review through the
agency, but would mean no review at all. The Court added
that a “ ‘serious constitutional question’ . . . would arise if we
construed § 1395ii to deny a judicial forum for constitutional
claims arising under Part B.”
476 U. S., at 681, n. 12 (quot-
ing Salﬁ, 422 U. S., at 762 (citing Johnson v. Robison, 415
U. S. 361, 366–367 (1974))).

More than that: Were the Court of Appeals correct in be-
lieving that Michigan Academy limited the scope of § 405(h)
itself to “amount determinations,” that case would have sig-
niﬁcantly affected not only Medicare Part B cases but cases
arising under the Social Security Act and Medicare Part A
as well.
It accordingly would have overturned or dramati-
cally limited this Court’s earlier precedents, such as Salﬁ
and Ringer, which involved, respectively, those programs.