U.S. Judge strikes down Health Care Reform law

A federal judge in Florida has struck down the Obama administration's requirement that nearly all Americans buy health insurance, and questioned the constitutionality of the entire health care law.

"I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate," wrote U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, the second federal jurist to rule against law that Obama signed last year.

Two other judges have sided with the administration on the issue that may well wind up in the Supreme Court.

Obama and his aides said the requirement that all Americans, known as the individual mandate, is essential to financing the plan -- and that is exactly the reason opponents of the health care law have targeted it in a series of federal lawsuits. The law requires nearly all Americans to have health insurance in 2014, or face fines.

Vinson, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, drew a case filed by GOP attorney generals within hours of the law's signing in March; eventually 26 states joined in the lawsuit.
Congressional Republicans who fought the health care bill last year hailed the ruling.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sakid the decision confirms that "the health spending bill is a massive overreach and Democrats 'exceeded the bounds' of Congressional authority." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, praised the ruling, saying that "Congress does not have the legal authority to tell Utahns and other Americans that they must buy health insurance or else."

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