Judge rejects key part of health-care law

December 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

Declaring a core part of the new health-care law unconstitutional, a federal judge in Virginia has launched President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement into a gantlet of conservative-leaning courts that will almost certainly conclude at the Supreme Court just as the 2012 election is cresting.

In the first such decision since Obama signed the law in March, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson ruled Monday that Congress had overstepped its power in requiring Americans to get health insurance by 2014.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision.

“It is acknowledged by all that we expect this case to end in the Supreme Court,” Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative Republican who brought the case, said after Hudson issued his ruling. Hudson denied a request to throw out the mandate while higher courts consider the case.

Legal experts are divided on whether the Supreme Court is likely to void the law.

The justices, including the court’s conservatives, have repeatedly said that elected lawmakers, not judges, should set national policy. But the court’s conservative majority has also shown itself willing to set aside precedent and strike down laws in politically charged cases.

The legal attack on the insurance mandate is a key element of the conservative strategy to derail Obama’s health-care overhaul, which depends on puttung an estimated 30 million more Americans onto insurance rolls.

The much-anticipated decision by Hudson, an appointee of President George W. Bush, added new fuel to the gathering Republican drive. Even in the courts, the partisan nature of the debate is apparent: Two other federal district judges, both Democratic appointees, ruled previously that the insurance mandate was constitutional.

The target of the Virginia lawsuit is the unprecedented insurance mandate, which will require most Americans to get health insurance starting in 2014 and penalize those who do not.

The requirement would spread risk more broadly and control insurance premiums for everyone, enabling the federal government to prohibit insurers from denying coverage to Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.

Without a mandate, Americans would be able to buy insurance only when they get sick, driving up premiums, a phenomenon that has occurred in several states that have guaranteed coverage without any requirement.