Next stop for health law appeal includes two GOP-appointed judges

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May 12 2011

As news outlets were chewing over Tuesday's hearing on the health law, the next appeal panel, with two Republican-nominated judges, was announced.

The Hill: Cuccinelli Sounds Upbeat On Healthcare Challenge Despite Legal Drubbing
The next appeals court to hear challenges to the law will be the 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati on June 1. The judges ... have a much different ideological make-up than the Richmond trio: While Circuit Judge Boyce Martin, Jr. was appointed by Jimmy Carter, Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton is a George W. Bush appointee and District Judge James Graham was appointed by Ronald Reagan (Pecquet, 5/11).

Politico Pro: Next Judges To Hear Health Appeal Announced
The next panel to take up a health reform appeal might not be so friendly to the Affordable Care Act. ... The judges will hear oral arguments in the appeal by the conservative legal group Thomas More Law Center ... In the health reform cases, the judges' political appointments have taken on significant meaning. All of the district judges who have ruled on the merits of the law have done so along the partisan lines of the presidents who nominated them. It's unclear whether that trend will continue (Haberkorn, 5/11).

Related from KHN: Scoreboard: Tracking Health Law Court Challenges (Vaida, updated 5/11)

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.