President Obama's healthcare overhaul, which has resulted in mixed - but very strong - emotions since its announcement, passed the first stage in front of the federal appellate court. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati found that the law's insurance requirement is constitutional (Levey).
"We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause," the panel concluded after a 2-1 majority rejected the challenge by the conservative Thomas More Law Center (Levey). .
Judge Martin, who took the lead on the decision in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama said, "The minimum coverage provision regulates activity that is decidedly economic. Consumption of health care falls squarely within (Supreme Court precedent's) definition of economics, and virtually every individual in this country consumes these services. Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the minimum coverage provision is essential to the Affordable Care Act's larger reforms to the national markets in health care delivery and health insurance" (Biskupic). .
Judge Jeffrey Sutton, an appointee of President George W. Bush and a former law clerk to conservative Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia, joined the majority in support of the mandate. He is the first Republican on the federal bench to do so. However, it is far from the end for the mandate. GOP state officials in Virginia, Florida, and other states have made similar challenges to the mandate. They are currently being reviewed in federal appellate courts in Atlanta and Richmond, Virginia. Twenty-six states bound together to bring one case against the mandate. Most legal experts and other litigants involved in healthcare lawsuits predict that the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that Obama signed last year will be determined in the U.S. Supreme Court as early as next year (Levey).