Posted on January 31, 2011
A federal judge in Florida has ruled that the president’s health care overhaul, “Obamacare,” is unconstitutional. The judge based his ruling on the law’s mandate that citizens must purchase health care, a requirement he said violates the Constitution. The ruling affects the 26 states who had joined together to file a case against the law, yet still has implications for the entire country.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled Congress overstepped its bounds by instituting the individual mandate, but also said the entire law was unconstitutional since the individual mandate is not “severable,” Fox News reports. Vinson did not go as far as to issue an injunction blocking the law from being implemented.
“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate. That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system. The health care market is more than one sixth of the national economy, and without doubt Congress has the power to reform and regulate this market. That has not been disputed in this case. The principal dispute has been about how Congress chose to exercise that power here,” Vinson wrote. Read More
