U.S. appeals court backs Obama health care law

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—President Barack Obama's signature health care law got a boost Tuesday when a U.S. appeals court agreed with a lower court that dismissed a challenge and found the law's minimum coverage requirement was constitutional.

The District of Columbia U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that had found it constitutional to require Americans to buy health care insurance coverage by early 2014 or face a penalty and had dismissed a lawsuit challenging it.

"It certainly is an encroachment on individual liberty, but it is no more so than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race...or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family," wrote Judge Laurence Silberman in the majority opinion, citing past federal mandates that inspired legal fights.

"The right to be free from federal regulation is not absolute, and yields to the imperative that Congress be free to forge national solutions to national problems, no matter how local—or seemingly passive—their individual origins."

It was the latest victory for the Obama administration, which sought the new law to try to stem the soaring costs of health care and to increase coverage for the more than 35 million Americans without health care insurance.

Two federal courts have thrown out the so-called individual mandate, but others have upheld it. The Supreme Court is expected to take up the matter this term.

In the latest case, Judge Brett Kavanaugh broke with the other two justices on the panel and said the court did not have jurisdiction to decide the case.

In his 65-page dissent, he wrote that the Anti-Injunction Act "limits the jurisdiction of federal courts over tax-related matters" and said the penalty charged for not having insurance is a tax.

Judge Kavanaugh also cautioned the courts against rushing to decide the constitutionality of the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, and urged waiting until 2015, when tax refund or enforcement suits would be filed over the mandate.

"We should hesitate to unnecessarily decide a case that could usher in a significant expansion of congressional authority with no obvious principled limit," Judge Kavanaugh wrote.

Last month, the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court for a quick ruling on the requirement. The high court could resolve uncertainty over the law that is affecting the federal government, states and companies. The court's current term runs through June 2012.

More than half the states have sued to challenge the law, saying Congress overstepped its constitutional authority.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, saying in August that the law is not protected by the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to regulate commerce among states.

It too said the penalty for not having insurance was akin to a tax, which the U.S. government was not entitled to levy.

But a U.S. Appeals Court in Cincinnati said the individual mandate was constitutional.

Meanwhile, Virginia is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a decision throwing out its challenge that contends federal law cannot trump a state one allowing residents to forego health insurance.