END GAME? – AT 7:02 P.M. ET:  Virginia, under its aggressive conservative government, is moving to get a final judicial verdict on the constitutionality of Obamacare:

RICHMOND - Virginia will ask that the U.S. Supreme Court immediately review the state's constitutional challenge to the federal health-care overhaul, a rare legal request to bypass appeals and ask for early intervention from the nation's highest court, Attorney General Ken T. Cuccinelli II said Thursday.

Cuccinelli (R) said that conflicting court decisions about the law's constitutionality have created sufficient uncertainty about implementation of the sweeping law to justify speeding Supreme Court review.

The Justice Department will oppose the motion, saying that the case should be fully heard by lower courts before the Supreme Court takes action.

The high court has granted such requests infrequently, and many experts said they think Cuccinelli's filing is a longshot. Supporters of the law said that the provision at the heart of the legal dispute - a requirement that individuals buy health insurance - will not go into effect until 2014.

COMMENT:  Eventually, this will go to the high court.   My own view, as a citizen, is that the court should grant Cuccinelli's motion because health care is so central to American life and the American economy.  Although the individual mandate, requiring that individuals buy health insurance, doesn't formally go into effect until 2014, it is at the heart of the law, and the heart of the uncertainty.

February 3, 2011