February 01, 2011
February 1, 2011: A U.S. District Court judge in Florida has ruled that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional.
This ruling goes further than a December 2010 verdict declaring Section 1501 of ACA—the law’s individual mandate—unconstitutional. Judge Roger Vinson, of Federal District Court in Pensacola, Florida, agreed yesterday with the earlier decision that the individual mandate oversteps the powers of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, but he determined the individual mandate to be so inextricably tied to the rest of ACA that the entire law should be invalidated.
Judge Vinson’s ruling is likely to be appealed at the Eleventh Circuit Court in Atlanta.