Legal challenge to 'individual mandate' sees day in court

The Washington Post:The legal challenges to the health law continue. "A federal judge in Virginia will hear arguments Monday on whether the new federal health care law is unconstitutional. Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli II (R) will argue that Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by enacting a provision that requires individuals to purchase health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine. Lawyers for President Obama will tell the judge that the individual insurance mandate falls within Congress' constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce" (Helderman, 10/18).

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Last week, a federal judge in Florida allowed part of a legal challenge to go forward that includes 20 different states; today, a federal judge hears arguments in a separate suit spearheaded by the state of Virginia. The issue that this effort is boiling down to revolves around the 'individual mandate' in the bill, which requires people to buy health insurance" (Dupree, 10/18).

WTOP (Washington, D.C.): "Cuccinelli says he is encouraged by a Florida ruling last week in a separate suit filed by 20 other states, that the penalty is not a tax. 'This is the first judge to rule either way and he ruled rather clearly that it is not a tax,' he says. 'We hope to see the same ruling coupled with a ruling that the individual mandate is unconstitutional in this case'" (10/18).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.