NYT: Second Appeals Panel Deciding Challenge to ACA Is ‘Less Friendly’

Court challenges to the ACA are taking a slightly different turn with another set of appeals judges this week. Turns out that one of the plaintiffs in the case in which states are challenging the insurance mandate provision of the law purchased insurance through her employer — raising the question of plaintiffs’ legal standing in the ongoing pursuit of this case. The U.S. Solicitor General is asking for the case to be dismissed.

Court challenges to the ACA are taking a slightly different turn with another set of appeals judges this week. Turns out that one of the plaintiffs in the case in which states are challenging the insurance mandate provision of the law purchased insurance through her employer — raising the question of plaintiffs’ legal standing in the ongoing pursuit of this case. The U.S. Solicitor General is asking for the case to be dismissed.

[Sol. Gen.] Katyal then argued that the law’s insurance mandate, which takes effect in 2014, does not so much require individuals to buy coverage as it does regulate the way they pay for health care they will inevitably consume. Without the mandate, Mr. Katyal said, the law’s requirement that insurers provide coverage to all applicants, regardless of their health status, would simply encourage people to buy insurance after they got sick. [..] “Congress is not regulating the failure to buy something, but the failure to secure financing,” Mr. Katyal said.

 

Two judges on this panel are Repub appointees. One was appointed by a Democrat. This circuit is the second of three appeals panels scheduled to hear challenges to the ACA. | LINK

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