Va. begins courtroom assault on federal health-care overhaul

[Derechos]

Va. begins courtroom assault on federal health-care overhaul

By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 2, 2010; B01



RICHMOND -- The legal challenge to the nation's new health-care law was launched Thursday in a courtroom in Richmond, where the office of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II argued that the measure is an unprecedented overreach by Washington that violates the founders' intention of a limited federal government.

Arguing the case for Virginia, Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell Jr. told a judge that it would be "unprecedented," "ahistorical" and "radical" for the federal government to require an individual to buy a private product -- in this case, health insurance.

In front of a packed courtroom -- with spectators overflowing into a second room and supporters of the federal law demonstrating outside -- attorneys for the Obama administration responded that the Virginia suit has no merit and should be tossed out of court. They said the law's mandate that Americans buy health insurance was well within Congress's constitutional power.

District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson said he will decide within 30 days whether to allow the case to proceed.

The hearing was the first skirmish in a legal war over the federal health-care overhaul that is not likely to be settled until it makes its way to the Supreme Court.

The Virginia suit is one of two major state-level, Republican-led efforts to kill the federal health-care law in court. It is a fast-attack assault that narrowly contends that Congress overstepped its authority by requiring individuals to buy health insurance or face a fine. Attorneys general in 20 other states have joined a suit filed in Florida that adds the assertion that the federal law encroaches on the sovereignty of the states by requiring them to expand Medicaid programs.

Cuccinelli has said his suit was necessitated by a Virginia statute that went into effect Thursday making it illegal to force residents to buy health insurance. The measure was passed by legislators explicitly to clash with the federal law, which imposes a fine on people who don't buy insurance by 2014.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/01/AR2010070106199.html

[abluelady]

1. And How Much Will this Cost the State of Virginia

By the way, I think his name is Cukoonelli!