COLUMBIA (WACH, AP) -- A federal judge in Florida says the Obama administration's health overhaul is unconstitutional, siding with 26 states including South Carolina, that had sued to block it.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson on Monday accepted without trial the states' argument that the new law violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.
Attorneys for the administration had argued that the states did not have standing to challenge the law and that the case should be dismissed.
"Judge Vinson's ruling is a tremendous victory for taxpayers and the Constitution," South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said after the announcement. "If the National Health Care law's unconstitutional mandate was allowed to stand, individual rights would be trampled, small business would be crippled, and our state would be pushed ever closer toward fiscal ruin."
"We have long argued that, among its many other flaws, the national health care law is unconstitutional, something that is now increasingly clear to all," Governor Nikki Haley says. "South Carolina must take steps to avoid this unconstitutional infringement – one we do not want and cannot afford. We can improve health care in our state without this massive mandate from Washington, and that’s what our Administration, working with the General Assembly, will do.”
The case is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Two other federal judges have upheld the insurance requirement, but a federal judge in Virginia also ruled the insurance requirement unconstitutional.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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