Opponents of President Obama’s health-care reform bill are confident that U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson will not dismiss their case against what they say is an unconstitutional federal overreach.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, along with the attorneys general of Alabama and Utah — states also listed in the case — were present in Pensacola, Fla. this morning for oral arguments on the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss.

“My judgment — and of course everybody’s guessing what judges are going to do — is that he is more sympathetic than maybe the Justice Department would like on the states’ arguments, particularly with respect to the damage that this law is going to do to us,” McCollum said at a press conference after the hearing. “At one point he said the states were in [a] catch-22. At one point he said the states would be stuck with this. At one point he said the states would be powerless.”

Ian Gershengorn, deputy assistant attorney general, told the court that none of the plaintiffs have standing to bring the suit.

In addition to 20 U.S. states, the suit also represents the National Federation of Independent Business and two Florida residents who say they do not want to purchase health insurance. Some of the claims to standing are new, and not represented in Virginia’s lawsuit against the health-care reform bill.

“We have a situation where we also are making an argument for state sovereignty — that there’s a violation of the rights of the 10th amendment of the states by commandeering our assets by ordering us to pay more money in Medicaid,” McCollum told Battle ‘10 before today’s arguments. “A tremendous question is also being raised that was not raised in the Virginia case.”

Blaine Winship, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, told the media that the DOJ’s refusal to concede standing raises an important question.

“If individuals don’t have the standing, if the states don’t have the standing, if an association doesn’t have the standing, who is left to contest this?” Winship said.

Today’s arguments also touched on whether the health-care bill’s individual mandate can be justified under the commerce clause. The states’ attorneys argued that the tax imposed on those who choose not to purchase health insurance oversteps congressional authority by regulating non-activity.

Gershengorn, though, told the court that the health-insurance and health-care markets are so inexorably linked that the individual mandate represents a legitimate regulation of interstate commerce.

“The appearance of inactivity here is just an illusion,” Gershengorn said. “It is not verbal gymnastics.”

At the core of Gershengorn’s argument was the assertion that those who choose not to purchase health insurance still require health care, but simply finance their future health purchases in a different manner. He likened it to a hypothetical point-of-sale regulation over whether cash or check could be used to pay health bills.

“It is regulating the way people pay for health care services,” Gershengorn said. “That is economic activity, plain and simple.”

If accepted, that logic would grant the federal government virtually unlimited power under the commerce clause, Winship told media after the hearing.

“I think there are tremendous implications for reordering American society as well, because the supply side of commerce is really just the flip side of the demand side of commerce. If they can make us buy something, they can make us sell things. They can make us produce things,” Winship said. “They’ll be able to reorder our society in a complete, top-down command modality that I think the Founding Fathers, who put our Constitution together, completely rejected.”

Vinson expects to rule on the motion to dismiss within 30 days, and he agreed to an expedited schedule in which he would hear any following motions for summary judgment on December 16.

Pam Bondi, the GOP nominee for Florida’s attorney general, expressed confidence that the case will not be dismissed.

“After trying cases for 20 years, you can learn to read a judge, and I felt the judge asked much more favorable questions of the lawyers for the attorneys general than he did of the Department of Justice,” Bondi told Battle ‘10. “I think he was tougher on them.”

Florida, though, may not be in on the action. Bondi’s Democratic opponent in the state attorney general race, Dan Gelber, has pledged to take the state off of the case if he is elected.

“He has vowed that the day he is sworn in, he will personally drive over and dismiss the lawsuit, removing Florida from the healthcare lawsuit,” Bondi said.

The suit will continue on regardless, McCollum said.

“Whether or not Florida participates, in the end this case will go to the United States Supreme Court,” McCollum said. “There are 20 states involved; somebody is going to carry it there.”