A decision determining the constitutionality of the new health care law will be issued at the end of this year, federal judge Henry Hudson said Monday.
A lawsuit filed by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli questions the provision within the law requiring all state residents to obtain health insurance. In total, 20 states filed lawsuits after the controversial bill's passing. In response to a lawsuit from a Christian legal group in Michigan, a federal judge there has become the only jurist so far to rule on the policy, deeming it to be constitutional. Both Hudson and a district court judge in Pensacola, Fla., however, have given favorable preliminary opinions toward the arguments against the mandate. In the Virginia case, a lawyer representing the state argued that if Hudson finds this specific provision unconstitutional, he should proceed to void the law completely until it has reached the Supreme Court, as it fails to include a "severability" clause allowing the remainder of the law to survive past modification.
But the Justice Department argued that some provisions, such as the vast expansion of Medicaid eligibility under the new law, could be preserved regardless of the decision, and that the law itself should stay in effect during the appeals process.
Virginia Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., told Hudson that the federal government was acting in a manner that was "unprecedented, unlimited and unsupportable in any serious regime of delegated, enumerated powers" by requiring citizens to purchase a commercial product such as health insurance from the government.
In response, Ian Gershengorn, a deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, said it is impossible for citizens to stay out of the health care market, even with the current system, and that staying away from any insurance plan is actually an active decision because all individuals eventually find that they need health care.
"It's forcing somebody to pay for a market they have already entered," he said.
-compiled by Bethel Habte
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