Johnson v. Becerra

Home health agencies (HHAs) had the option of participating in the federal Medicare program. If an HHA chose to participate, federal laws required that it not discriminate against chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (the agency) was responsible for ensuring that HHAs satisfied this requirement. Catherine Johnson and Cara Bunnell (plaintiffs), both Medicare beneficiaries with multiple sclerosis, required HHA services but had trouble finding HHAs that would accept them as patients. Johnson sometimes found an HHA, but these HHAs accepted her only temporarily, would not provide her with all her covered services, and required her to personally pay extra beyond Medicare reimbursements. Bunnell faced similar challenges. Johnson and Bunnell believed that their difficulty in obtaining HHA services was due to most HHAs ignoring Medicare’s participation requirements. Johnson, Bunnell, and others (plaintiffs) (collectively, the beneficiaries) filed a class action against the agency’s secretary, Xavier Becerra (defendant), seeking an order requiring the agency to enforce Medicare requirements for HHAs. The beneficiaries claimed enforcement would cause more HHAs to serve chronically ill beneficiaries, remedying their harm. The federal district court found the beneficiaries lacked standing. The court ruled the beneficiaries had failed to show that their requested relief (an order directing the agency to act) would actually redress their alleged harm (lack of service from possibly rule-breaking private HHAs). The court dismissed the lawsuit. The beneficiaries appealed.