WASHINGTON — This week’s stunning ruling by a federal judge in Virginia to throw out a key plank of President Obama’s health plan is relaunching health care as a burning political issue with big implications for the 2012 elections.
The Justice Department moved yesterday to appeal the ruling, which invalidated the law’s mandate that people buy health insurance.
“We intend to appeal the district court’s ruling in Virginia to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals,” said department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.
Some Republicans are pushing to fast-track the issue to the Supreme Court, though Schmaler said the case should go through the “ordinary course.”
Republicans, who will take over the House in January, are vowing to step up their efforts to repeal the law or otherwise try to gut it by knocking down its enforcement provisions in legislative battles.
House Republicans “will pass a straight-up repeal of ObamaCare early on in the 112th Congress,” said a spokesman for likely Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has similar plans to try to force repeal.
GOP senators yesterday ripped provisions to fund administration of the new law that were included in a spending bill that Democrats unveiled yesterday.
Top White House advisers said Obama would veto any efforts to repeal the law, which was his top legislative priority over the past two years.
But the court ruling and ongoing controversy are certain to keep the issue front and center in the 2012 campaigns.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a possible presidential candidate who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, is already using the court ruling in fund-raising material.
“There can be little doubt that this matter will go before the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote to supporters, urging them to make a contribution to “help us continue our fight to support quality conservatives at every level of government.”