Another U.S. judge hits healthcare law

PENSACOLA, Fla., Jan. 31 (UPI) -- The White House repudiated a U.S. judge's ruling Monday that struck down the government's Affordable Care Act.

The Obama administration accused U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of "judicial overreaching," saying it "contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent that support the considered judgment of the democratically elected branches of government." The government also noted "the judge declared that the entire law is null and void even though the only provision he found unconstitutional was the 'individual responsibility' provision."

The White House was responding to Vinson's determination that the federal healthcare reform law's requirement that people purchase health insurance is unconstitutional.

The judge struck down the entire law, saying the individual requirement cannot be severed from the rest of its language.

"The individual mandate is outside Congress's commerce clause power, and it cannot be otherwise authorized by an assertion of power under the necessary and proper clause," Vinson said in his opinion in Pensacola. "It is not constitutional. Accordingly, summary judgment must be granted in favor of the (26 state plaintiffs)."

The commerce clause of the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce and is used to underpin a number of federal laws. The necessary and proper clause gives Congress the authority to implement its powers granted by the Constitution.

Vinson said the entire act had to fall because the individual mandate could not be severed from the rest of the law. "It is reasonably 'evident' ... that the individual mandate was an essential and indispensable part of the health reform efforts, and that Congress did not believe other parts of the act could (or it would want them to) survive independently. I must conclude that the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit."

The judge ruled for the government on the act's expansion of Medicaid, but since the entire law was struck down, that point seemed moot.

He also conceded healthcare reform was needed, and that Congress could approach it another way.

Besides the 26 states in the case before Vinson, two other states, Virginia and Oklahoma, have filed challenges.

A federal judge ruled in the Virginia case the individual insurance provision is unconstitutional. The Oklahoma challenge is still in its early stages.

Two other federal judges, in Michigan and California, have rejected private challenges.

All the cases are likely to be consolidated at some point, and the U.S. Supreme Court probably will be asked to decide on the law's constitutionality.

The Republican-dominated U.S. House has voted to repeal healthcare reform but the repeal is given little chance in the U.S. Senate and President Obama has vowed to veto it if it comes to his desk.