18
Opinion of the Court
It would, moreover, have created a hardly justifiable distinction between "amount determinations" and many other similar HHS determinations, see supra, at 14. And we do not understand why Congress, as Justice Stevens believes, post, at 30-31 (dissenting opinion), would have wanted to compel Medicare patients, but not Medicare providers, to channel their claims through the agency. Cf. Brief for Respondent 7-8, 18-21, 30-31 (apparently conceding the point). This Court does not normally overturn, or so dramatically limit, earlier authority sub silentio. And we agree with those Circuits that have held the Court did not do so in this instance. See Michigan Assn. of Homes and Servs., 127 F. 3d, at 500-501; American Academy of Dermatology, 118 F. 3d, at 1499-1501; St. Francis Medical Center, 32 F. 3d, at 812; Farkas, 24 F. 3d, at 855-861; Abbey, 978 F. 2d, at 41-44; National Kidney Patients Assn., 958 F. 2d, at 1130-1134.
Justice Thomas maintains that Michigan Academy "must have established," by way of a new interpretation of § 1395ii, the critical distinction between a dispute about an agency determination in a particular case and a more general dispute about, for example, the agency's authority to promulgate a set of regulations, i. e., the very distinction that this Court's earlier cases deny. Post, at 38 (dissenting opinion). He says that, in this respect, we have mistaken Michigan Academy's "reasoning" (the presumption against preclusion of judicial review) for its "holding." Post, at 39-40. And, he finds the holding consistent with earlier cases such as Ringer because, he says, in Ringer everyone simply assumed without argument that § 1395ii's channeling provision fully incorporated the whole of § 405(h). Post, at 40-42.
For one thing, the language to which Justice Thomas points simply says that "Congres[s] inten[ded] to foreclose review only of 'amount determinations' " and not "matters which Congress did not delegate to private carriers, such as challenges to the validity of the Secretary's instructions and regulations," Michigan Academy, supra, at 680 (emphasis
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