Federal government responds to Cuccinelli health-care suit

Edited by Chris Graham
[email protected]
 

The federal government responded Monday to Virginia’s lawsuit over the recently enacted federal health care law with a motion to dismiss the suit.

“We are still looking through the motion and 39-page brief that we received late Monday, but at initial glance, this is pretty close to what we expected,” Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said in a statement Monday night.

Cuccinelli and his team are on the hook to file a response to the motion to dismiss by June 7. The government then has until June 22 to reply to Virginia’s response.

“The federal government is forcing citizens to buy health insurance, claiming it has the authority to do so because of its power to regulate interstate commerce via the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. We contend that if a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person – by definition – is not engaging in commerce, and should not be subject to a federal mandate,” Cuccinelli said.

“Just being alive is not interstate commerce. If it were, there would be no limit to the Commerce Clause and to Congress’s authority to regulate everything we do. If Congress has the power to force Americans to buy health insurance, then there’s nothing to stop Congress from forcing us to buy any product,” Cuccinelli said.