Administrative law folks looking for drama will be disappointed by yesterday’s 7-1 opinion in Azar v. Allina Health Services, a Medicare case that had potential wider implications for administrative law but in the end turned out to provide a bread-and-butter statutory interpretation analysis that said little about administrative law or even very much about Medicare.
Medicare was before the Supreme Court yesterday in a case that could have significant implications for administrative law. At the granular level, the case, Azar v. Allina Health Services, concerns whether the Department of Health and Human Services was permitted to change, without notice and comment, an important reimbursement formula for hospitals that treat many low-income patients.
The intricacies of the Medicare program will be on display at the Supreme Court next week, in a case challenging a major Department of Health and Human Services payment determination issued without notice-and-comment procedures.