Miami - A federal judge in Florida struck down President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare overhaul as unconstitutional on Monday in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.
US District Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the reform law's so-called individual mandate went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.
“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void,” he wrote. “This has been a difficult decision to reach and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.”
Referring to a key provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Vinson sided with governors and attorneys general from 26 US states, almost all of whom are Republicans, in declaring the Obama healthcare reform unconstitutional.
“Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution,” Vinson, who was appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled.
The Obama administration said it would appeal Vinson's ruling and believed it would prevail on a highly politicised issue likely to end up at the Supreme Court.
“We strongly disagree with the court's ruling today and continue to believe - as other federal courts have found - that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” Justice Department spokesperson Tracy Schmaler said.
The plaintiffs represent more than half the US states, so the Florida case has more prominence than some two dozen similar lawsuits filed in federal courts.
The healthcare overhaul enacted last year, a contentious cornerstone of Obama's presidency, aims to expand health insurance to cover millions of uninsured Americans while also curbing costs. Administration officials insist it is needed to stem huge projected increases in healthcare costs.
Two other district court judges have rejected challenges to the individual mandate. But a federal district judge in Richmond, Virginia, last month struck down that central provision of the law, saying it invited an “unbridled exercise of federal police powers”.
Vinson's ruling was dramatically broader than the one in Richmond, since his colleague there only struck down the individual mandate requirement and refused to invalidate the entire healthcare law. - Reuters