40
TERM CARE, INC. Thomas, J., dissenting
ski, 421 U. S. 560, 567 (1975)). But we placed at least equal reliance on the legislative history of the 1972 amendments to the Medicare Act, see 476 U. S., at 680, and our holding was that challenges to particular determinations would trigger § 1395ii, whereas challenges to the Secretary's instructions and regulations governing particular determinations would not, ibid.; see supra, at 38. Indeed, in setting aside the physicians' argument that § 405(h) bars general federal-question jurisdiction only when Congress has provided "specific procedures . . . for judicial review of final action by the Secretary," Michigan Academy, supra, at 679-680, we expressly declined to decide the case by announcing the "exception" suggested by the majority. While we might have done so, cf. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 328- 330 (1976) (describing limited exception to § 405(g)'s requirement that Secretary's decision be "final" before judicial review may be sought), we simply did not phrase our holding in those terms.
II
To be sure, the reading of Michigan Academy that I would adopt (and that the Court of Appeals adopted below, 143 F. 3d 1072, 1075-1076 (CA7 1998)), dictates a different result in the earlier Ringer case. In Ringer, recall, the respondents were individual Medicare claimants who brought a challenge to the Secretary's policy regarding payment of Medicare benefits for a specific surgical procedure. As noted, we (and the parties) simply assumed that § 1395ii's incorporating reference to § 405(h) was triggered by such a challenge, and proceeded directly to decide the case based on § 405(h). And yet, under Michigan Academy's gloss on § 1395ii, we would never have reached § 405(h) because § 1395ii would not have
of Michigan Academy, not the majority's, is consistent with the language in Michigan Academy setting forth that case's holding: § 1395ii "foreclose[s] review only of 'amount determinations,' . . . [not] challenges to the validity of the Secretary's instructions and regulations." 476 U. S., at 680.
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