For now, Obama admin bests Va. healthcare reform challenge

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit curtly handed down an opinion in the Obama administration’s favor by vacating and remanding the Commonwealth of Virginia’s challenge to the constitutionality of the individual mandate provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

In an opinion written by Circuit Judge Diana G. Motz and decided Sept. 8, the court found in the case of Commonwealth of Virginia v. Kathleen Sebelius that Virginia does not possess a concrete interest in the “continued enforceability” of the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act (VHCFA) because it has not identified any plausible enforcement of the VHCFA that might conflict with the individual mandate.

“Rather, the only apparent function of the VHCFA is to declare Virginia's opposition to a federal insurance mandate. And, in fact, the timing of the VHCFA, along with the statements accompanying its passage, make clear that Virginia officials enacted the statute for precisely this declaratory purpose,” Motz wrote.

According to the court's opinion, Virginia maintained that it has standing to bring the case to action because the individual mandate conflicts with the VHCFA. Virginia filed this action on March 23, 2010, the same day that the President signed the PPACA into law. The Governor of Virginia did not sign the VHFCA into law until the next day, according to the opinion. “The VHCFA declares, with exceptions not relevant here, that ‘[n]o resident of this Commonwealth ... shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage.’”

The question presented is whether the conflict between the individual mandate and the VHCFA actually inflicts a sovereign injury on Virginia. According to Motz, if it does, then Virginia may possess standing to challenge the individual mandate. “But if the VHCFA serves merely as a smokescreen for Virginia’s attempted vindication of its citizens’ interests, then settled precedent bars this action.

“We note at the outset that the individual mandate imposes none of the obligations on Virginia that, in other cases, have provided a state standing to challenge a federal statute. Thus, the individual mandate does not directly burden Virginia, does not commandeer Virginia’s enforcement officials and does not threaten Virginia’s sovereign territory. Virginia makes no claim to standing on these bases.”

Under Virginia’s standing theory, a state could acquire standing to challenge any federal law merely by enacting a statute—even an unenforceable one—purporting to prohibit the application of the federal law, the opinion continued.

“Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the district court and remand with instructions to dismiss the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction,” the opinion concluded.

Read the 33-page opinion here.