The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking to dismiss the state of Virginia's lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the healthcare reform law to require most Americans to have health insurance by 2014, according to an AHA News Now report.
The government argues in a memo supporting the motion to dismiss that the Commerce Clause grants Congress the authority to enforce the provision. The memo also calls Virginia's lawsuit "an attempt to vindicate its own sovereign interest in a recently enacted statue purporting to exempt Virginians from any federal requirement to purchase health insurance," according to the report.
Thirteen states have filed separate similar lawsuits against healthcare reform.
Read the AHA News Now report on Virginia's healthcare reform lawsuit.