The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a legal challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, with the case not yet having wound its way through the lower US courts.
The Supreme Court, the judicial authority of last resort, declined to hear the case brought by Steve Baldwin and the Pacific Justice Institute, which had filed a federal lawsuit in California challenging the new massive health care law.
The plaintiffs asked the court to determine whether Congress has the constitutional power to decree that every American must purchase health insurance by 2014, as mandated in the law.
Their petition asked the court to determine “whether the individual mandate provision… exceeds Congress’ power under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution by regulating and taxing a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce (i.e., decision not to purchase health care insurance).”
The justices declined to take the case without comment. The case has yet to receive a ruling from an appeals court in California, making it premature to the Supreme Court to intervene.
The health care reform bill — Obama’s signature but controversial achievement during his first two years in the White House — was signed into law in March.
Various US states have vowed to fight the bill, which passed after months of bitter wrangling in Congress.
Since its enactment, some 20 US states have launched legal challenges to the new law, while some members of the newly-elected, conservative US Congress have vowed to use various legislative stratagems to prevent the bill from being put into effect. Other lawmakers have vowed to work to repeal the controversial measure.
Among the justices weighing in on the case was Elena Kagan, the newest judge on the nine-strong bench, and Obama’s former solicitor general.
There had been speculation that as a former member of the Obama administration, Kagan might choose to recuse herself from the case.
Washington, Nov 8, 2010 (AFP)
