⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The D.C. Circuit hears Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and other teaching hospitals challenge a change in their Medicare payments. Medicare pays teaching hospitals an extra amount to help cover costs associated with training doctors. That amount depends in part on the ratio of doctors in training to hospital beds: counting more beds reduces the payment. The agency began including labor and delivery beds that had previously been excluded, and these hospitals received less money. They challenged the rule, but a federal district judge upheld it, finding both statutory authority and a reasonable explanation for the change. The hospitals will argue that Congress preserved the earlier calculation and that the agency failed to justify changing this measure of teaching intensity. The government will argue that Congress authorized it to define available beds, and that counting labor and delivery beds consistently with another Medicare payment program was reasonable.

Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, et al. v. Kennedy (No. 25-5190) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, argued November 10, 2026.