Litigants in one of the most high-profile health care reform lawsuits in the country today presented their arguments to Virginia district court judge Henry Hudson, who later this year will rule on the constitutionality of the law’s individual insurance mandate.
That puts the case a few months ahead of a separate, but similar, lawsuit in Florida, which has been joined by 20 U.S. states.
In December, Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee, will award what’s known as a summary judgment in the case, applying the law as he sees it to the facts at hand. (The facts in this instance are undisputed, and so the case will not go to trial.)
This is also the likeliest outcome of the suit in Florida, where both the federal government and the plaintiffs will argue their cases on December 16.
Late last week, the judge in that case, Robert Vinson, agreed to hear two of the plaintiff’s six complaints, including on the constitutionality of the individual mandates. In his ruling, Vinson acknowledged that the health care law invokes the Commerce Clause of the Constitution in unprecedented ways.
“We go to have our summary judgment hearing on the motions and summary judgment in December on the 16th,” said Florida Attorney General Bob McCollum. “That’s when he gets to the merits. He would be very wrong to come to any conclusions in this particular order. What he is saying, though, is we have a really good case.”
After arguments today, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli predicted that appeals will take this case to the Supreme Court, which will make a final determination about mandate before it goes into effect in 2014. There are more than a dozen similar cases across the country, the most high-profile of which we explained here.
“If Virginia loses this fight and the federal government is allowed to cross this line, Congress will be granted unlimited power to regulate you to purchase anything,” Cuccinelli said.
