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Appeals court rejects two challenges to healthcare law
Los Angeles Times
A federal appeals court in Virginia on Thursday rejected two conservative challenges to President Obama’s healthcare law, ruling that the legal dispute over the mandate to have insurance cannot be decided by judges until after 2014 when the tax penalty takes effect.
The first decision overruled a Virginia judge, who was the first to declare the healthcare law unconstitutional, and it threw out the suit brought by Virginia Atty. Gen. Kenneth Cuccinelli on the grounds that he had no standing to sue in the first place.
But the second decision could change the brewing legal battle over the healthcare law, which appears headed for a Supreme Court showdown early next year.
Chief Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals pointed to the heretofore ignored federal law known as the Anti-Injunction Act, which forbids taxpayers from challenging taxes in court prior to paying the tax
