4th Circuit Rejects Two Obamacare Challenges on Procedural Grounds

Avik Roy
Sep. 8 2011

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has rejected two Obamacare constitutional challenges, on the creative premise that the individual mandate is a tax, and that the Anti-Injunction Act requires that a tax already be implemented in order for plaintiffs to have standing to sue on the basis that a tax is unconstitutional.

Up to this point, every single court that has ruled on the Obamacare challenges, whether led by Republican or Democratic appointees, has agreed that the individual mandate in PPACA is a penalty, not a tax. So it will be interesting to read the opinions in Virginia v. Sebelius and Liberty v. Geithner (which I’ve uploaded to this blog) to see how the judges justified this approach. The judges also write that, even if the plaintiffs had had standing to sue, they would have upheld the mandate. the rest