No. 23-250October Term 2023Decided Jun 6, 2024
Becerra v. San Carlos Apache Tribe
The Supreme Court ruled that the Indian Health Service must reimburse tribes for overhead costs associated with spending healthcare revenue collected from third-party payers like Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers.
Case status
- Current stage
- Decided
- Latest event
- Decision released Jun 6, 2024
- What it's about
The Supreme Court ruled that the Indian Health Service must reimburse tribes for overhead costs associated with spending healthcare revenue collected from third-party payers like Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers. The decision affirmed that the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act requires the government to cover these contract support costs to support tribal self-governance in healthcare administration.
Question presented
Must the Indian Health Service pay “contract support costs” not only to support IHS-funded activities, but also to support the tribe’s expenditure of income collected from third parties?
- Case path
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit / Decision released Jun 6, 2024
- Area
Business and Regulation
Timing
Decided June 6, 2024
The Court released its decision 73 days after oral argument on March 25, 2024. The median for cases argued in March is 83 days.
Documents
Related cases
Grounding
- Grounding
- Primary-source trail available.
- Note
- Plain-English explainer. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.
- Checked
- Mar 30, 2026
- Method
- Methodology