New Jersey Doctors’ Group Loses Bid to Reinstate Health-Care Law Challenge
A U.S. appeals court rejected a bid by group of New Jersey doctors to reinstate their lawsuit challenging the federal health-insurance overhaul.
New Jersey Physicians Inc., a nonprofit group, and an uninsured patient identified only as “Patient Roe” failed to adequately plead a concrete or actual injury, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled today. The ruling affirms a lower- court decision tossing the case in December.
“The plaintiffs have not met their burden in pleading facts that establish the requisite injury in fact and therefore fail to demonstrate standing,” the three-member appeals panel said in a 15-page opinion.
The nonprofit sued in March 2010, along with Mario Criscito, a New Jersey cardiologist affiliated with the group, and Patient Roe challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s requirement that citizens purchase insurance. The entire act is unconstitutional because the individual mandate exceeded Congress’s authority, the group claimed in the complaint.
Today’s ruling is a “minor setback,” Robert J. Conroy, a lawyer for the group, said in a phone interview today. The nonprofit has 90 days to decide whether to re-file its complaint or petition the Supreme Court, he said.
‘On the Merits’
“It’s inevitable that the Supreme Court will eventually reach the issue on the merits, and when it does, it will strike down the act as unconstitutional in its entirety,” Conroy said.
The law, intended to create the first near-universal U.S. health-care coverage program, bars insurers from rejecting coverage for people who are already sick and from imposing limits on lifetime costs. It also requires almost every American resident to have health insurance starting in 2014 or to pay a tax penalty.
The appeals court ruled that the complaint alleged no facts to indicate that Patient Roe was affected by the act or the mandate. It also failed to demonstrate how Criscito would be injured and prove the group’s “associational standing” to bring a claim, according to the opinion.
“This case is thus unlike some of the other pending health-care challenges, in which the plaintiffs alleged or demonstrated that they were experiencing some current financial harm or pressure arising out of the individual mandate’s looming enforcement in 2014,” the panel said.
The case is New Jersey Physicians Inc. v. President of the U.S., 10-4600, 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (Philadelphia).
To contact the reporter on this story: Sophia Pearson in Philadelphia at spearson3@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.
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