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https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-hits-biden-admin-bill-1909145

The Supreme Court has hit the Biden administration with a massive bill
after siding with Native American tribes in a dispute over federal health
care funding, ordering the federal government to reimburse millions in administrative costs and pay future expenses.

In a 5-4 vote, the High Court ruled that the federal government owed the
two tribes the millions of dollars they paid after taking over their
health care programs as part of the Indian Self-Determination and
Education Assistance Act, which was meant to give tribes more sovereignty.

Justices John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch joined their liberal colleagues,
while Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas and
Samuel Alito dissented.

Writing for the majority opinion, Roberts said that it was "necessary" for
the federal Indian Health Service (IHS) to cover costs in order "to
prevent a funding gap" between tribes and the IHS. The court ruled that,
"If IHS does not cover those costs to support a tribe's expenditure of
program income, the tribe would have to divert some program income to pay
such costs, or it would have to pay them out of its own pocket."

"Either way, it would face a penalty for pursuing self-determination,
contrary to the policy underlying ISDA," Roberts opined.

The IHS, which is an agency within the Department of Health and Human
Services, bills Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance for services and retains the revenue. The tribes in Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe had contracted with IHS to run their own programs and as part of the contract,
IHS paid the tribes the money it would have spent on those programs.

But the contract did not include expensive overhead costs for billing
insurance companies or Medicare and Medicaid, which the tribes argue
should be reimbursed by the federal government. They said that having to
do the billing themselves cost the San Carlos Apache Tribe nearly $3
million over three years and the the Northern Arapaho Tribe $1.5 million
over two.

The Department of Health and Human Services argued that it was not
responsible for the expensive overhead costs. Two lower courts agreed with
the tribes and Thursday's decision reiterated those findings.

"Contrary to the Government's assertion, there is no extended chain of causation: The Tribes' self-determination contracts require the collection
of program income," the majority opinion reads.

It concluded, "When the Tribes do so and incur administrative costs, ISDA requires IHS to pay those support costs."

Four of the court's conservative justices disagreed.

Writing in his dissent, Kavanaugh argued that the majority opinion upends
a "long-settled" understanding that the executive branch should not have
to pay those overhead costs since Congress never assigned the federal government to foot the bill.

Noting that Thursday's ruling would cost the federal government between
$800 million and $2 billion annually, Kavanaugh said, "the Court's
decision will divert funding from poorer tribes to richer tribes" because Congress only appropriates about $8 billion annually for IHS.

The Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe was one of three cases that the
Supreme Court decided on Thursday, meaning there are still 28 decisions to
be released in the final three weeks of the term, including major rulings
on abortion, gun rights and presidential immunity.


--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.

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