Court Orders for Fourth Circuit Health Care Reform challenge

Following oral arguments back on May 10th., the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in considering challenges to the federal health care law, raised additional issues about its authority to rule on the constitutionality of the new health care law’s mandate for virtually everyone to have health insurance coverage.

Lyle Denniston at ScotusBlog last Monday wrote that "Raising the prospect that it may throw out challenges to the new health care law's mandate for virtually everyone to have health insurance, the Fourth Circuit Court on Monday told lawyers in the two cases to file new briefs on the scope of its authority. In two identical orders, the three-judge panel indicated it wanted to explore further how to treat the financial penalty that individuals would have to pay to the federal government if they did not obtain health coverage by 2014." ( Denniston’s post )

Briefs ordered by the Fourth Circuit aren’t supposed to be longer than ten pages, and are due by May 31st.

The Fourth Circuit has an audio link to arguments in the cases ( Here )