No Surprise: 4th Circuit Tosses Virginia Challenge to Obamacare

Business groups and conservative scholars downplayed the U.S. 4th Circuit Court ruling rejecting Virginia's challenge to Obamacare on Thursday.

Todays decision, while disappointing, does not come as any surprise. It was obvious to all who heard the 4th Circuit oral argument that the plaintiffs faced an uphill battle," said Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center.

"During arguments all three judges questions were skeptical of the chief arguments the plaintiffs in the case made.Among other things, the judges questioned whether the decision not to buy health insurance was an activity that could be regulated," Harned said.

The 4th Circuit's ruling did not affect a separate case carried by NFIB, Florida and 25 other states. That challenge to the constitutionality of the health-care law's individual mandate was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal.

Stephen Presser, a professor of law at Northwestern University, said the 4th Circuit's "highly technical decision did not rule on the constitutionality of the health-care act."

"The court ruled that since the individual mandate applies only to individuals, the state of Virginia, which had brought this particular action, had no "standing" --or, in other words, the state could not stand in the shoes of the individual Virginians affected by the act," Presser said.

Saying the decision "might well be questionable," Presser noted that the court did indicate that important constitutional issues were involved, and "even conceded that those issues should be resolved in an appropriate forum.

"This is a further indication that the United States Supreme Court should soon resolve this issue, now that both the district courts and the court of appeals have issued contradictory decisions both on the standing and substantive issues.

Ilya Shapiro of the libertarian Cato Institute, said The 4th Circuits rulings today in no way affect any other case and should only speed up the Supreme Courts ultimate consideration of the issues raised in all these challenges.

"The dismissal of Virginias lawsuit on standing grounds merely removes one particular plaintiff from consideration, even as 26 states and numerous nonstate plaintiffs remain in separate suits.

"Similarly, the dismissal of Liberty Universitys lawsuit, while interesting in that it marks the first-ever finding that the individual mandate is a tax (that cannot be challenged before its enforced), doesnt change the jurisprudential calculus because there was already a split between the 6th and 11th Circuits on the mandates constitutionality."

Shapiro concluded:

"All of the constitutional issues attending the individual mandate have now been exhaustively ruled upon by three federal appellate courts in four separate cases. While the D.C. Circuit will hear argument in yet another suit later this month, theres no reason for the Supreme Court to delay its review."