Federal Judge Rules Key Provisions of Healthcare Unconstitutional

You can read Judge Roger Vinson entire opinion here, but the long and the short of it is that, because he found key provisions unconstitutional, he had ruled the entire law void.

Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. 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."

The central issue is requiring people to purchase insurance, which is the result of substituting a huge corporate giveaway to the insurance industry for state-sponsored universal healthcare.

That's not intended as a criticism of Obama/the Democrats (even if it functionally serves as one); it's just a factual statement about the context of this decision. Irrespective of discussions of whether universal healthcare is achievable in this nation, there is much less ground (i.e. none) on which to question the constitutionality of using taxpayer dollars to fund socialized healthcare, than there is on which to question requiring people to use their own money to purchase insurance from a private entity.

So that's where we are.