Cite as: 503 U. S. 347 (1992)
Blackmun, J., dissenting
to the Court, the beneficiaries of the Act enjoy at most a procedural right under § 671(a)—the right to require a participating State to prepare and file a plan—not a substantive right to require the State to live up to the commitments stated in that plan, such as the commitment to make "reasonable efforts" to prevent unnecessary removals and secure beneficial reunifications of families. Since the State of Illinois has filed a plan that the Secretary has approved, the Court reasons, the State has violated no right enforceable in federal court.
The Court's reasoning should sound familiar: The state officials in Wilder made exactly the same argument, and this Court rejected it. In Wilder, we noted that the Medicaid Act expressly conditions federal funding on state compliance with the provisions of an approved plan, and that the Secretary is required to withhold payments from noncomplying States. See 496 U. S., at 512 (citing 42 U. S. C. § 1396c).2 In
substantially identical language, the Adoption Act, too, requires States to live up to the commitments stated in their plans.3 To be sure, the Court's reasoning is consistent with the dissent in Wilder. See 496 U. S., at 524, 527-528 (Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting). But it flatly contradicts what the Court held in that case.
The Court attempts to fend off this conclusion in two ways, neither of them persuasive. First, the Court seeks to distinguish Wilder, asserting that our conclusion—that the Boren Amendment gave the health-care providers a substantive right to reasonable and adequate reimbursement—"relied in
2 "If the Secretary . . . finds . . . that in the administration of the plan there is a failure to comply substantially with any . . . provision [required to be included in the plan,] the Secretary shall notify [the] State agency that further payments will not be made . . . ." 42 U. S. C. § 1396c.
3 "[I]n any case in which the Secretary finds . . . there is a substantial failure to comply with the provisions of [an approved] plan, the Secretary shall notify the State that further payments will not be made . . . , or that such payments will be made to the State but reduced by an amount which the Secretary determines appropriate . . . ." 42 U. S. C. § 671(b).
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