WASHINGTON:  Colorado Attorney General John Suthers called Monday’s opening salvo at the U.S. Supreme Court on the federal Affordable Care Act a “preliminary skirmish” and said he had no inkling of how the court would go based on the day’s arguments.

Today’s 90 minutes of testimony on the Anti-Injunction Act evaluated whether the mandate that every U.S. citizen purchase health care is a tax or a penalty.

“They basically said, ‘Congress didn’t call it a tax, why should we call it a tax?’” Suthers said, in an interview afterward.

Suthers will be in the chambers tomorrow, too, for the two-hour arguments about whether it is constitutional to require everyone to buy health insurance. He is among 26 state Attorneys General who have sued the federal government after Congress passed the law two years ago.

“There are lots of national problems that you can envision out there,” Suthers said. “If the government can require you to buy products or services to solve every national problem, they will control your economic decisionmaking.”

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