12
Opinion of the Court
the challenged provision. See id., at 761. And the Court thought this fact helped make clear that the action arose "under the Act whose benefits [were] sought." Ibid. But in a later case, Ringer, the Court reached a similar result despite the absence of any request for such relief. See 466 U. S., at 616, 623.
In Ringer, four individuals brought a § 1331 action challenging the lawfulness (under statutes and the Constitution) of the agency's determination not to provide Medicare Part A reimbursement to those who had undergone a particular medical operation. The Court held that § 405(h) barred § 1331 jurisdiction over the action, even though the challenge was in part to the agency's procedures, the relief requested amounted simply to a declaration of invalidity (not an order requiring payment), and one plaintiff had as yet no valid claim for reimbursement because he had not even undergone the operation and would likely never do so unless a court set aside as unlawful the challenged agency "no reimbursement" determination. See id., at 614-616, 621-623. The Court reiterated that § 405(h) applies where "both the standing and the substantive basis for the presentation" of a claim is the Medicare Act, id., at 615 (quoting Salfi, 422 U. S., at 760-761) (internal quotation marks omitted), adding that a "claim for future benefits" is a § 405(h) "claim," 466 U. S., at 621-622, and that "all aspects" of any such present or future claim must be "channeled" through the administrative process, id., at 614. See also Your Home Visiting Nurse Services, Inc. v. Shalala, 525 U. S. 449, 456 (1999); Califano v. Sanders, 430 U. S. 99, 103-104, n. 3 (1977).
As so interpreted, the bar of § 405(h) reaches beyond ordinary administrative law principles of "ripeness" and "exhaustion of administrative remedies," see Salfi, supra, at 757—doctrines that in any event normally require channeling a legal challenge through the agency. See Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 148-149 (1967) (ripeness); McKart v. United States, 395 U. S. 185, 193-196 (1969) (ex-
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