Atlanta Circuit Court Rules Key ObamaCare Provision Unconstitutional: Will It Matter To A President That Seeks To Rule By fiat

The Wall Street Journal reports on the ruling.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that Congress exceeded its constitutional powers when it required individuals to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.

"This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives," Judges Joel Dubina and Frank Hull said in a jointly written 207-page opinion.

The ruling marked the first time a Democratic-appointed judge has found part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Judge Hull was appointed by Bill Clinton, while Judge Dubina is a George H.W. Bush appointee.

The decision directly conflicts with a different ruling issued in June by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati that upheld the law. The disagreement between the circuits makes it a near certainty that the Supreme Court will eventually step in and provide the final word on the law's constitutionality.

Several legal challenges are working their way through the nation's courts, but Friday's ruling came in the highest-profile lawsuit of them all: a case brought by 26 governors and attorneys general, almost all of them Republicans, from states including Florida, Ohio and Texas. The National Federation of Independent Business and two individuals were also plaintiffs in the case.

Stephanie Cutter, an adviser to President Barack Obama, said in a statement, "We strongly disagree with this decision and we are confident it will not stand."

In other words, we'll ignore it, and go full steam ahead on what we want to do anyway. No one has stopped us yet. If the Supreme court rules against us, we'll just keep going and dare Congress to yank the money away and impeach Himself.

There is a Constitutional crisis or two bearing down upon us, as in the days of Nixon. The difference is, Nixon did understand that he could not defy the Supreme Court, and the Senate Republicans of the day (like Howard Baker) paid him a visit to make certain he wasn't considering that course of action.

In this day, Obama's contempt of the Constitution itself is well documented, and there is no Democrat in either House or Senate with the stones to stand up to him.

There were those who, rashly at the time it seemed, claimed that ObamaCare was not so much about health care as about the shredding of the Constitution in the process of seizing power. They may have been prescient.

It is now up to the states to resist, separately and together, and for the citizens of the states to make certain their legislators understand their concerns.