460
Opinion of the Court
three-year reopening period, what would the Legislature have anticipated as the proper administrative course? Error perpetuation until Congress plugged the hole? Or the Secretary's exercise of authority to effectuate the Legislature's overriding purpose in the Medicare scheme: reasonable (not excessive or unwarranted) cost reimbursement?
While the Hospital's reading of the GME Amendment is plausible, it is not the "only possible interpretation." See Sullivan v. Everhart, 494 U. S. 83, 89 (1990). As Judge Wald wrote in her opinion for the D. C. Circuit: "Context is all, and . . . we believe the use of the 1984 figures for the indefinite future cautions . . . against a reading of ['recognized as reasonable'] that allows no elbow room for adjustments [to correct] prior miscalculations or errors." Tulane, 987 F. 2d, at 796.4 Because the Hospital's construction is not an inevitable one,5 we turn to the Secretary's position, examining its reasonableness as an interpretation of the governing legislation.
B
The purpose of the GME Amendment was to "limit payments to hospitals" for GME costs. See H. R. Conf. Rep.
4 The Hospital contends Congress did not delegate authority to the Secretary specifically to reaudit the 1984 base-year amount, in contrast to its express delegation to "establish rules" for computing the number of full-time-equivalent residents under § 1395ww(h)(4). But "the concept of reasonable costs already was a mainstay of Medicare statutes and regulations, [so] there was no need to establish any new rulemaking authority for its determination." Tulane, 987 F. 2d, at 795, n. 5 (citations omitted). See 42 U. S. C. §§ 1395x(v)(1)(A), 1395hh(a)(1).
5 The dissent acknowledges that, "in isolation the phrase 'recognized as reasonable' is ambiguous," post, at 466, but finds clarity when those words are read "in their entire context," ibid. We agree that context counts and stress in this regard what the Court has said "[o]ver and over": " 'In expounding a statute, we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy.' " United States Nat. Bank of Ore. v. Independent Ins. Agents of America, Inc., 508 U. S. 439, 455 (1993) (quoting United States v. Heirs of Boisdoré, 8 How. 113, 122 (1849)).
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007