Richard Wolf

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Two separate legal challenges to President Obama's health care law met with skepticism Thursday from a federal appeals court panel dominated by Obama's latest appointees.

All three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel had tough questions for non-profit religious groups that object to signing a form indicating they won't include contraception services in their health care plans. The groups say that links them to the mandated coverage, later provided by private insurers.

The judges appeared even more dubious about a claim that the entire law is unconstitutional because of the way it was passed in 2010, when the Senate substituted the massive statute for an unrelated and far less significant House bill.

Even though all three judges on the panel were Democratic appointees, their objections appeared indicative of the problems facing opponents who continue to battle the health care law, two years after it was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Already, one new case has been heard by the high court — a challenge by two for-profit businesses to the so-called "contraception mandate." Their objection to covering some contraceptive services that they equate with abortion was argued in March and will be decided by the end of June.

Beyond that case, however, are dozens of others being pressed by opponents of the law.

Thirty-eight lawsuits have been filed by religious non-profits who don't want any role in offering some or all forms of birth control. While many have won preliminary or permanent injunctions, others have had their challenges dismissed.

On Thursday, a panel led by Judith Rogers, who was named to the court by President Clinton in 1994, and Obama nominees Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins appeared to agree with the government that allowing such groups to opt out of the contraception requirement relieves them of complicity.

On Thursday, the opponents — including Priests for Life and the Archdiocese of Washington — argued that even opting out on paper made them a party to any subsequent provision of contraception services by insurers. The Justice Department said the government, not the employers, required the coverage.

Judge Pillard questioned why the burden on the non-profits remained "substantial," and therefore deserving of relief. Judge Rogers wondered whether the burden was in fact real, as opposed to just being interpreted that way.

Noel Francisco, one of the opponents' attorneys, said it was enough that the religious non-profits believed signing an opt-out form made them complicit. "We're talking about the heartland of a religious burden," he said. "Violate your beliefs, or pay a fine."

Less successful have been challenges mounted by conservative groups against the law itself:

• In Thursday's second case, the Pacific Legal Foundation appealed a district court ruling that the law was properly passed by Congress. The group contends that the law is a "revenue bill" because it was upheld by the Supreme Court based on its tax penalty for people who don't buy insurance. If so, it must begin in the House — but the group says the original, unrelated House bill didn't qualify as a revenue bill.

The judges didn't seem impressed. Rogers said the House bill related to corporate taxes and fit the Supreme Court's criteria for a revenue bill. Wilkins noted the opponents had no successful legal precedents on which to base their challenge, nor did any House members object to the process at the time.

• In an earlier case awaiting a ruling from a separate D.C. circuit court panel, opponents contend that the law's widely used tax credits and subsidies cannot go to people who buy insurance on the federal health care exchange. The provision in the law refers only to state exchanges, but federal regulators have interpreted it more broadly.

As in the other conservative challenge, the opponents lost at the federal district court level and appealed. A decision is expected soon.