Once again, a court has found the individual mandate contained within President Obama’s health care law to be unconstitutional.
This time it’s the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Atlanta, where a three judge panel vindicated a challenge by 26 states against the mandate in a 2-1 ruling.
“This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives,” the majority of the panel found.
While the panel found the individual mandate unconstitutional, it chose on another key point to side against plaintiff states, ruling that the mandate is severable from the rest of the sweeping law.
According to HealthCareLawsuits.org, a website tracking the legal cases against Obama’s law throughout the states, more than thirty lawsuits have been filed against the law thus far. An expected ruling from the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Virginia’s lawsuit against the individual mandate is anticipated soon, with an inevitable showdown before the Supreme Court expected next year.
(Listen to a podcast related to today’s ruling here.)