Begins Hearing Arguments Of A Legal Challenge To The Constitutionality Of A New Medical Reform In The United States. Part 3 of 3

In the case decided Monday, Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli, a Republican, had filed a lawsuit in defense of a young Virginia law barring the federal government from requiring state residents to buy health insurance. He argued that it was unconstitutional for the federal act to force citizens to buy health insurance and to assess a fine if they didn’t.

The US Justice Department said the insurance mandate falls within the scope of the federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause. But Cuccinelli said deciding not to secure insurance was an economic matter outside the government’s domain.

In his decision, Hudson agreed. “An individual’s personal decision to secure – or decline to purchase – health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the Commerce Clause,” the judge said.

Jack M Balkin, a professor of constitutional law at Yale University who supports the constitutionality of the health-reform package, told the Times that “there are judges of discrete ideological views throughout the federal judiciary”. Hudson seemed to reflect that reality when he wrote in his viewpoint that “the final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court,” the Times reported addyzoa. By 2019, the law, unless changed, will expand health insurance access to 94 percent of non-elderly Americans.

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