U.S. Backs Health-Care Reform Act in Appeals Court Briefing
A U.S. appeals court should reverse a federal judge’s decision to strike down as unconstitutional a requirement that citizens obtain health-insurance coverage as part of the Obama administration’s health-care reform law.
The Justice Department, in a 62-page brief submitted to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, today defended what it has called a linchpin provision in legislation intended to create the first U.S. universal health-care law.
President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23. That day then-Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed legal challenges to the measure.
“The minimum coverage requirement is ‘essential’ to the act’s insurance reforms that prevent insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums because of an individual’s medical condition or history,” the U.S. said in its brief.
The federal government is seeking to overturn U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson’s Dec. 13 ruling in Richmond striking down the mandate.
Ruling in Cuccinelli’s case, Hudson held the law improperly requires Americans to maintain a minimum level of health insurance, going beyond Congress’s powers to regulate interstate commerce. The judge left the rest of the law intact.
The U.S. has also said it will appeal a ruling by U.S. District Judge C. Roger Vinson last month which also found the purchase provision to be unconstitutional. Finding the provision inextricable from the remainder of the act, he invalidated the legislation in its entirety.
25 Other States
Vinson’s decision was rendered in the Florida attorney general’s case, in which 25 other states have joined as party plaintiffs. Vinson was appointed to the bench by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, in 1983.
Hudson was named to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush in 2002.
Three U.S. judges, each appointed by President Bill Clinton -- a Democrat -- have upheld the legislation as lawful.
The Richmond-based appeals court will hear argument during its May 10 to May 13 session in Cuccinelli’s case and on the appeal filed by the evangelical Liberty University, whose bid to invalidate the law was rejected by one of the Clinton nominees, U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The Cuccinelli case is Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius, 10-cv-00188, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond). The Liberty case is Liberty University v. Geithner, 6:10-cv-00015, U.S. District Court, Western District of Virginia (Lynchburg).
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew M. Harris in Chicago at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net
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