The White House on Monday brushed off the setback a federal judge dealt to President Obama’s signature health care reforms, predicting the president would ultimately prevail in the courts. “Obviously, the administration argued on the other side of this case and disagrees with the ruling,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “Our belief is that when all the legal wrangling is done, this is something that will be upheld.”
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson of Virginia struck down a key provision of the reform law that requires individuals to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty.
The ruling was cheered by conservatives, civil libertarians and others who argued that forcing consumers to buy health insurance was an abuse of constitutional powers.
“This was inevitable because it’s absurd to argue that an individual mandate is constitutional,” said Michael Cannon, a health care policy expert at the Cato Institute. “It also reveals that everything the administration said about these being frivolous lawsuits was desperate political spin.”
The health care reforms, which Obama signed into law in March, has been assailed by critics, was never popular with voters and now faces numerous legal challenges that are likely to be settled by the Supreme Court.
The individual mandate provision does not take effect until 2014, and White House officials and reform advocates expressed confidence it would survive the courts and stand as law.
Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, a labor-backed advocacy group, called Hudson’s ruling “bad for people’s health.”
“If his decision is upheld, it would give the green light for insurance companies to deny people care based on pre-existing conditions,” Rome said.
Still, health care reform has never been an easy sell for the administration, with many voters ranking jobs and the economy as more urgent priorities.
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found support for the health care measure at an all-time low of 43 percent. The law’s popularity peaked in November 2009 at 48 percent.
Republicans in Congress are vowing to repeal the law when the next session starts in January. House Speaker-elect John Boehner, R-Ohio, urged the White House to work with Congress in fashioning a remedy.
“If Washington thinks it can get away with this kind of power grab, it will think it can do anything,” Boehner said.
The White House was mum on calls by Republicans to circumvent a lengthy appeals process and fast-track the matter to the Supreme Court and appeared unlikely to do so.
Administration officials noted the individual mandate is a key underpinning on which other provisions of the law depend — notably protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions.
Stephanie Cutter, assistant to the president for special projects and the West Wing point person for health care reform, noted by way of a precedent that most states require motorists to obtain car insurance.
Monday’s ruling marked the first time a federal judge has struck down a provision of the health care law. Two other federal judges, one in Michigan and another in Virginia, ruled in separate cases that the law was constitutional.
Cutter said the Justice Department is now “considering its appeal options.”
