SCOTUS to Health Reform Challengers – Not So Fast
FHW law clerk Scott Malott authored today's post.
Months of "Will they? Won't they?" speculation ended Monday morning when the United States Supreme Court officially declined early intervention into Virginia’s health care law challenge. Following a decision from a U.S. District Court in Virginia that held the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (PPACA) individual mandate is unconstitutional and severed it from the rest of the Act, Virgina filed a “petition for certiorari before judgment” in February that asked the Supreme Court to review the lower court’s decision - BEFORE the case could be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
The Supreme Court rarely grants these petitions, and it did not make an exception here. There were no comments issued with the denial, and no dissents noted.
However, it still appears that an eventual hearing before the Supreme Court is inevitable. Challengers of the law have been pushing for an expedited review because some parts of the Act, including some small-business tax credits, federal grants, and consumer protection measures, are already in effect and are being enforced. However, while the challengers were hopeful that this would be a prime instance for the nation’s highest court to hear a case before court of appeals review, the Supreme Court traditionally prefers that the major issues in the cases it hears be fully fleshed out in the lower courts.
Virginia has a law on its books that specifically states that residents cannot be forced to buy health insurance. As an extension, and in support of its own law, Virginia’s argument against PPACA is that the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution does not grant the government the power to require that private citizens purchase a commercial product. While Virginia officials have indicated disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision, advocates of the Act opine that constitutional challenges to the Act have no merit and should be rejected unanimously. At least until one of the cases works its way to the Supreme Court through the proper channels (estimates range from late 2011 to sometime in 2012), implementation of the Act will be allowed to press on.
