(Reuters) – A judge in Florida on Monday invalidated President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law after finding the requirement that Americans buy health insurance was unconstitutional, in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.
U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the reform law’s “individual mandate” went too far in requiring that Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty and was inextricably linked to the rest of the law.
Here are some questions and answers about the political and legal challenges to the law.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN THE COURTS?
The Obama administration said it will appeal the judge’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and is considering asking the appeals court for a stay of Judge Vinson’s ruling pending that review.
Besides that case, a U.S. judge in Virginia in December declared a critical part of the healthcare law unconstitutional, in the first major setback to the reform. The case was appealed and arguments are scheduled for May.
U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, a Republican, backed the state of Virginia’s argument that Congress had exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to start buying health insurance in 2014 or face a fine.
More than half of all states now are challenging the law in the federal courts. Another federal judge in Virginia and one in Michigan upheld the individual mandate as constitutional.
Oklahoma decided to file its own lawsuit in January.
Constitutional scholars expect one of the two dozen lawsuits filed since the law was enacted to eventually make its way through to the U.S. Supreme Court,
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