Breaking news shows that the individual mandate portion of Obamacare has been ruled unconstitutional by an appeals court.
Washington Examiner:
The three-judge panel that made the ruling was comprised of two Democrats, so this will be hard for the Obama administration to dismiss as the work of a lone activist conservative judge.
This follows a far different ruling from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in June which ruled it as constitutional.
I will provide links to today's ruling and news reports when they become available.
This ruling comes as a majority of Americans continue to register as opposed to Obamacare.
The final decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
[Update] The news reports begin.
Reuters: Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare law
An appeals court ruled on Friday that President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty was unconstitutional, a blow to the White House.
U.S. appeals court in Georgia is the latest to rule that individual mandate in Obama’s health care law is unconstitutional.
More from Business Insider:
The court said that Congress cannot "mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die," according to Phillip Klein of the Washington Examiner.
The section of the bill made it illegal for an individual not to have health insurance, and is one of the most contested parts of the law passed in March 2010. Twenty-six state have filed suit to have the law overturned.
WSJ:
A divided U.S. appeals court in Atlanta ruled Friday that a key provision of last year's federal health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, siding with a group of 26 states that challenged the law.
The 2-1 ruling marks the Obama administration's biggest defeat to date in the multifront legal battle over the health-care law.
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11th Circuit concludes:
the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power. This conclusion is limited in scope. The power that Congress has wielded via the Commerce Clause for the life of this country remains undiminished. Congress may regulate commercial actors. It may forbid certain commercial activity. It may enact hundreds of new laws and federally-funded programs, as it has elected to do in this massive 975- page Act. But what Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die.
It cannot be denied that the individual mandate is an unprecedented exercise of congressional power. As the CBO observed, Congress “has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” CBO MANDATE MEMO, supra p.115, at 1. Never before has Congress sought to regulate commerce by compelling non-market participants to enter into commerce so that Congress may regulate them. The statutory language of the mandate is not tied to health care consumption—past, present, or in the future. Rather, the mandate is to buy insurance now and forever. The individual mandate does not wait for market entry.
Question: Since Democrats deliberately removed the severability clause in Obamacare, then why would the whole law not be declared unconstitutional?
A severability clause is meant to insure that if one part is ruled against the other parts could remain, but Democrats took that out, so the 11th circuit should have ruled the whole kit and kaboodle unconstitutional.
[Update] Page is down, probably from massive traffic, but this URL is where the ruling will be showing. (PDF)
Scribd link to ruling found here. (304 pages)
[Update] The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) gave Fox a statement:
"Small-business owners across the country have been vindicated by the 11th Circuit's ruling that the individual mandate in the health-care law is unconstitutional," said Karen Harned, executive director of the group's legal center.
"The court reaffirmed what small businesses already knew - there are limits to Congress' power. And the individual mandate, which compels every American to buy health insurance or pay a fine, is a bridge too far," she said.
[Update] Forbes: The decision, penned by Chief Judge Joel Dubina and Circuit Judge Frank Hull, found that "the individual mandate contained in the Act exceeds Congress's enumerated commerce power."
"What Congress cannot do under the Commerce Clause is mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die"
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