Federal appeals court strikes down ObamaCare’s key funding mechanism known as the individual mandate

 the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that a key aspect of the ObamaCare law is unconstitutional ,setting up another likely Supreme Court showdown in a presidential election year.

The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded by a 2-1 vote the original law’s key funding mechanism known as the individual mandate requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance or face a tax penalty . The original Supreme Court ruling  rule the individual mandate was a “tax “.

The three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans agreed with Texas-based U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s finding that the insurance requirement was rendered unconstitutional when, in 2017, Congress eliminated a tax penalty on people without insurance.

The appeals panel sent the issue back to the lower court to decide whether other aspects of the Affordable Care Act must fall.

“The individual mandate is unconstitutional because it can no longer be read as a tax, and there is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power,” the ruling said. “On the severability question, we remand to the district court to provide additional analysis of the provisions of the ACA as they currently exist.”