Key Obamacare provision found unconstitutional

This is good news. Of course, it's just a temporary roadblock, it will, of course, be appealed, and until it finally gets to the SCOTUS, it's still in play.

Key healthcare provision voided by federal judge
A requirement that Americans buy insurance — the central provision of Obama's signature domestic achievement — is unconstitutional, the ruling says.
December 13, 2010|By Noam N. Levey and David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau

Reporting from Washington — Declaring a core part of the new healthcare law unconstitutional, a federal judge in Virginia has launched President Obama's signature domestic achievement into a gantlet of conservative-leaning courts that will almost certainly conclude at the Supreme Court just as the 2012 election is cresting.

In the first such decision since Obama signed the law in March, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson ruled Monday that Congress had overstepped its power in requiring Americans to get health insurance by 2014.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision.

"It is acknowledged by all that we expect this case to end in the Supreme Court," Virginia Atty. Gen. Ken Cuccinelli, a conservative Republican who brought the case, said after Hudson issued his ruling.

Hudson denied a request to throw out the mandate while higher courts consider the case.

Legal experts are divided on whether the Supreme Court is likely to void the law.

The justices, including its conservatives, have repeatedly said that elected lawmakers, not judges, should set national policy. But the court's conservative majority has also shown itself willing to set aside precedent and strike down laws in politically charged cases.