Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Family Servs. v. Blumer, 534 U.S. 473, 23 (2002)

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Cite as: 534 U. S. 473 (2002)

Opinion of the Court

We further note that subsection (e), governing fair hearings in general, is not limited to a redetermination of the CSRA. It also permits a hearing if the couple is dissatisfied with:

"(i) the [CSMIA]; "(ii) the amount of monthly income otherwise available to the community spouse . . . ; "(iii) the computation of the spousal share of resources under subsection (c)(1) of this section; [and] "(iv) the attribution of resources under subsection (c)(2) of this section." § 1396r-5(e)(2)(A).

Given that the CSMIA itself may be adjusted in a fair hearing under subsection (e)(2)(A)(i), we cannot conclude that the States are forbidden to consider the projected CSMIA in the related hearing, authorized by subsection (e)(2)(A)(v), to increase the CSRA. Accord, Cleary, 167 F. 3d, at 810.

III

We thus hold that the income-first method is a permissible means of implementing the Act. The parties here have not also disputed the permissibility of the resources-first approach. We therefore do not definitively resolve that matter, although we note that the leeway for state choices urged by both Wisconsin and the United States is characteristic of Medicaid.

The Medicaid statute, in which the MCCA is implanted, is designed to advance cooperative federalism. See Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 308 (1980). When interpreting other statutes so structured, we have not been reluctant to leave a range of permissible choices to the States, at least where the superintending federal agency has concluded that such latitude is consistent with the statute's aims. In Batterton v. Francis, 432 U. S. 416, 429 (1977), for example, we upheld a regulation promulgated by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare affording the States dis-

495

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