The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a response to a motion for preliminary injunction filed by the Thomas More Law Center (the Center) to challenge the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The original lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Michigan on March 23, the day President Obama signed the PPACA into law. The Center challenged the constitutionality of the law saying that PPACA "imposes unprecedented governmental mandates that restrict the personal and economic freedoms of American citizens in violation of the Constitution." The Center claims in the complaint that no enumerated power in the Constitution exists to permit the federal government to mandate that all Americans must purchase or obtain health care coverage or face a penalty (the "minimum coverage" provision of the PPACA). The complaint lists as defendants President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner.

The plaintiffs in this case, the Center and four citizens who say they do not have health insurance and object to being compelled to purchase insurance on religious grounds under the First and Fifth Amendment, argue that Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to pass the PPACA and are requesting a declaration as such or a declaration that the penalty provision of the Health Care Reform Act is an unconstitutional "tax" and violates the Fifth Amendment's Due Process clause.

On April 6, the plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction of the PPACA, using the same arguments. The standard for preliminary injunction generally involves the likelihood of success of the plaintiffs' case on the merits; whether the plaintiff could suffer irreparable harm without the injunction; whether the disputed measures could cause substantial harm to others; and impact upon the public interest. The plaintiffs argue that the minimum coverage provision is unconstitutional, and it would cause irreparable harm to plaintiffs and others through the mandate to purchase insurance and a penalty being assessed, so the injunction is both in their and the public interest. They argue that the PPACA is not regulating economic activity, which is allowed under the Commerce Clause, but rather the choice not to participate in commercial or economic activity in not purchasing insurance.

In the defendants' response to the motion, filed on Tuesday, the Department of Justice argues that the plaintiffs do not satisfy the standing or ripeness requirement for the lawsuit, which is brought four years before the minimum coverage provision takes effect, and cannot demonstrate injury but only "speculate(s) whether the law will harm them once it is in force." Standing is the necessary requirement that a plaintiff demonstrate he or she will be immediately harmed by a law, and ripeness requires that an issue be ready for litigation. The DOJ says that the plaintiff individuals do not meet either requirement because they will not be affected until 2014, and perhaps not even then if other events lead them to voluntarily buy insurance, obtain insurance through employment, or are exempted from the penalty through income or hardship.

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