United States DC Circuit

In plaintiffs-hospitals' action claiming that the Secretary of Health and Human Services should include the beneficiaries of a state mandatory charity health care program when calculating the monies hospitals were due under the Medicare program for the elderly and the disabled, a judgment for plaintiffs-hospitals is reversed where: 1) section 5112.17(B) of HCAP is not part of the Ohio state plan approved under Medicaid because an approved plan must pay providers for the care of eligible patients, and section 5112.17(B) requires care for indigents without payment; and 2) HCAP patients do not obtain "medical assistance" within the meaning Medicare since the term is defined under Medicare as "payment of part or all of the cost" of medical "care and services" for a certain set of individuals, whereas the HCAP does not entail any payment.

Appellate Information

• Argued 03/18/2008
• Decided 05/30/2008
• Published 05/30/2008

Judges

• Before:  SENTELLE, Chief Judge, and GINSBURG and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States DC Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• August E. Flentje, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellant.   With him on the briefs were Jefrey S. Bucholtz, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey A. Taylor, U.S. Attorney, and Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice.  R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. Attorney, and Megan L. Rose, Attorney, U.S. Attorney's Office, entered appearances.


• For Appellees:
  
• Murray J. Klein argued the cause and filed the brief for appellees.