Cuccinelli defends challenge of health care law

RICHMOND

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli defended his challenge to the federal health care overhaul in a court filing Monday, arguing that the case centers on whether Congress overstepped its powers.

Cuccinelli filed suit in March, moments after President Barack Obama signed into law a health care plan that supporters say will better regulate insurance companies and extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, including the elderly, the poor and those whose ailments limit their ability to secure coverage.

To critics, the law amounts to excessive government spending - it boasts an estimated price tag of $1 trillion in the coming years - that comes on the heels of an economic downturn and adds to the national debt. In Virginia, officials have said additional Medicaid costs associated with the health plan may approach $1.5 billion by 2022.

Cuccinelli says the law's requirement that people obtain coverage or face penalties runs counter to a new Virginia law exempting residents from that mandate. He also contends that Congress exceeded its authority to regulate interstate commerce by including that provision in the package.

Separately from Virginia, a number of other states led by Florida are jointly pursuing litigation with a similar goal: overturning the health care law.

Lawyers for the federal government last month asked the court to reject Cuccinelli's lawsuit.

Although the rift over health care has been characterized by some as a partisan clash, the attorney general's response says the lawsuit isn't a "policy battle" disguised as something else.

"This is a legal contest," the filing states. "At issue is whether a state law survives because the federal law that would displace it is beyond the power of Congress to enact, or whether the state law must yield to a valid federal enactment."

This is the type of legal dispute courts have handled since the "earliest days of the Republic," it adds.

The case could help to define the scope of Congress' power in the future, Cuccinelli said in a statement Monday.

"If the government prevails... then Congress will have been granted virtually unlimited power to order you to buy anything," the attorney general's statement reads. "That would amount to the end of federalism and our more than 220 years of constitutional government."

Federal attorneys in their May 24 motion to dismiss also characterized the dispute as one that may shape how state and federal rights co exist.

If Cuccinelli's case succeeds, they argued, "a state could import almost any political or policy dispute into federal court by enacting its side of the argument into state law," the motion states.

Judge Henry E. Hudson has scheduled oral argument on July 1 and Oct. 18.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com