36
TERM CARE, INC. Thomas, J., dissenting
B
We squarely addressed § 1395ii for the first time in our 1986 decision in Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U. S. 667. The Secretary had adopted a regulation that authorized the payment of Part B benefits in different amounts for similar physicians' services. An association of family physicians and several individual doctors filed suit to challenge this regulation. Id., at 668. These plaintiffs asserted no concrete claim to Part B benefits, for judicial review of such a claim was clearly foreclosed by the statute as interpreted in Erika; they instead invoked federal-question jurisdiction. Our unanimous opinion 6 in
their favor began by rejecting the Secretary's contention that the provisions construed in Erika impliedly precluded review not only of benefit amount determinations under Part B, but also of challenges against the Secretary's methodologies for determining such amounts. 476 U. S., at 673. The "precisely drawn" provisions on which we had focused in Erika did not support the Secretary's proposed inference, as they "simply d[id] not speak to challenges mounted against the method by which such amounts are to be determined." 476 U. S., at 675.
We then turned to the Secretary's argument that § 405(h), incorporated by § 1395ii into the Medicare Act, expressly precludes a claimant from resorting to general federal-question jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331. The Secretary contended that under Salfi, supra, at 756-762, and Ringer, supra, at 614-616, "the third sentence of § 405(h) by its terms prevents any resort to the grant of general federal-question jurisdiction contained in 28 U. S. C. § 1331." 476 U. S., at 679. The plaintiffs responded that § 405(h)'s third sentence precludes use of § 1331 only when Congress has provided specific procedures for judicial review of final
6 Then-Justice Rehnquist did not participate.
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