A federal judge in Florida has struck down the Obama administration’s requirement that all Americans buy health insurance, and questioned the constitutionality of the entire health care law.

@funkmasteflex

“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate,” wrote U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, the second federal jurist to rule against law that Obama signed last year.

Two other judges have sided with the administration on the issue that may well win up in the Supreme Court.

Obama and his aides said the requirement that all Americans, known as the individual mandate, is essential to financing the plan — and that is exactly the reason opponents of the health care law have targeted it in a series of federal lawsuits. The law requires all Americans to buy health insurance in 2014, or face fines.

Vinson, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, drew a case filed by GOP attorney generals in 26 states within hours of the law’s signing in March.

The case — which the government is now likely to appeal — revolves around competing views of the federal government regulation of interstate commerce.

The states that sued argue that Congress and the federal government cannot force to engage in commerce; i.e., buy insurance.

The federal governmnent argue that it — and taxpayers — often pick up medical costs incurred by the uninsured, making health care a legitimate object of regulation.
USA