U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has issued an order granting summary judgment and declaring the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to be unconstitutional.
Vinson, a judge in the U.S. District Court in Pensacola, Fla., says in a ruling on State of Florida et al. vs. United States Department of Health and Human Services et al. (Case Number 3:2010-cv-00091-RV), that Congress has no authority under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution to enforce the "minimum essential coverage provision" in PPACA.
The PPACA minimum coverage provision would require individuals to buy health coverage. If the provision takes effect as enacted, it will require many people 
with incomes above a certain level who do not get health coverage from their employers to buy a minimum level of health coverage or else pay a penalty. The provision, set to take effect in 2014, provides exceptions for individuals with religious objections to owning health coverage and for some individuals who cannot find affordable health coverage.
Health insurers have argued that they can provide affordable health coverage for all, without basing rates on health status, only if the government requires all people – including relatively young, healthy people – to have health coverage.
PPACA contains many provisions other the minimum coverage mandate. Vinson says the entire act must be declared void because PPACA is not written in such a way that the coverage mandate can be considered separately from the rest of the act.
There is widespread sentiment for reducing the cost of health care and improving the quality, and the Florida case "is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation," Vinson says.
"This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications," Vinson says. "At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled 'The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.'"
Vinson made headlines in December 2010 when he asked during oral arguments on the Florida case whether Congress had the authority to impose a PPACA broccoli-eating mandate.
The Obama administration officials who defended the health insurance ownership mandate said the commerce clause, a part of the U.S. Constitution, gives the federal government the right to regulate economic activity that has an interstate impact, and that the authority to regulate activity includes the authority to regulate inactivity.
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