Federal judges hear 'origination clause' challenge to health law

The case, brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, Calif., argues the law's insurance mandate is unconstitutional because the Constitution's origination clause requires all revenue-raising measures to originate in the House of Representatives and this legislation began in the Senate.

McClatchy: Judges Seem Skeptical Over Latest Challenge To Health Care Law
The seemingly endless legal war over health care found an esoteric new front Thursday, as appellate judges considered where certain bills should originate. Amid references to various 18th-century Founding Fathers, some of them obscure, skeptical-sounding judges weighed claims that the Affordable Care Act's so-called individual mandate is invalid because it violates an under-appreciated part of the Constitution called the Origination Clause. The clause says that all bills "for raising revenue" must originate in the House of Representatives. The case pressed Thursday by the Pacific Legal Foundation, based in Sacramento, Calif., is that the health care legislation was a revenue-raising measure that effectively started in the Senate (Doyle, 5/8).

CQ Healthbeat:  Appeals Court Hears 'Origination Clause' Challenge to Health Law
Members of a powerful federal appeals court appeared impassive during oral arguments Thursday in a case that aims to throw out the 2010 health care overhaul on the grounds that it unconstitutionally violated the procedures Congress must follow in making laws. But if the members of the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia weren't signaling how it would rule in Sissel v HHS, the odds seem slim that they'll side with the Iowa small business owner who's the named plaintiff in the case that pivots around the Origination Clause of the Constitution (Reichard, 5/9).

Meanwhile, lawyers for several prominent Catholic organizations opened another battle about the law's contraceptive mandate -

Los Angeles Times: New Legal Battle Opens Over Obamacare And Contraceptives
Even as the Supreme Court weighs one challenge to the Obama administration's rule that female employees be offered health plans that include a full range of contraceptives, lawyers for several prominent Catholic groups are seeking to set up a potential Round 2 in the fight. In arguments Thursday before a U.S. appeals court, lawyers for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington clashed with administration attorneys over whether Catholic schools, colleges and charities should have a complete religious exemption from the so-called contraceptive mandate that forms part of President Obama's healthcare law (Savage, 5/8).