Lyle Denniston has an excellent post on Monday afternoon in Scotusblog summarizing Judge Henry Hudson's ruling that denied the Justice Department's motion to dismiss Virginia's constitutional challenge to the mandate in the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 requiring individuals to procure a minimum level of health insurance coverage.
Further to the essential point of my post in this blog yesterday, Denniston notes that Judge Hudson commented that the new law "radically changes" health care coverage in the United States, that Congress extended its "Commerce Clause powers beyond its current high water mark," and that "never before has the Commerce Clause and associated Necessary and Proper Clause been extended this far."
In my opinion, these comments go well beyond merely "displaying some skepticism about the scope of the new mandate" as Denniston charitably characterizes them. To my reading, they signal a profound concern by a clearly troubled jurist with the constitutional reach of the individual mandate provisions of Section 1501 of the Act that the Administration would be well-advised to take quite seriously.