Another US court rejects Obama’s health care reforms

In the most prominent rejection yet of President Barack Obama’s attempts at national health care reform, an Appeals Court has struck down as unconstitutional the mandate that nearly every American buy health insurance.

A panel of the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, ruled 2 to 1 on Friday that Congress does not have the authority to force people to buy "an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die," the Boston Globe reports.

The judges also "echoed the complaint" that the insurance mandate — set to take effect until 2014 — represents an "unprecedented" expansion of federal power, the LA Times reports.

"The individual mandate is breathtaking in its expansive scope," two judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in their 207-page majority opinion.

Even during the Great Depression or World War II, "Congress never sought to require the purchase of wheat or war bonds, force a higher savings rate or greater consumption of American goods," they observed. Though Congress may regulate those who buy insurance, it may not regulate those who "have not entered the insurance market and have no intention of doing so," they said.

The Wall Street Journal said of the ruling:

The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, and courts have interpreted that power broadly. But the majority said the Obama administration's defense amounted to an argument that merely by existing, individuals affect interstate commerce, "and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life."

The ruling directly conflicts with a ruling in June by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati that the insurance requirement is constitutional, making it a near certainty that the Supreme Court will step in, the Journal reports.

The Supreme Court could take up the issue as soon as its next session, which begins in the fall.

Meanwhile, government lawyers are expected to appeal the divided decision to the full appeals court, the Boston Globe reports.

It has already appealed a district court decision in Florida, that the entire overhaul was unconstitutional, in a suit brought by 26 states.