Is Obamacare done for?

Consumer Reports News: August 12, 2011 04:13 PM

Nope. Earlier today a federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down the most contentious part of the Affordable Care Act—the "individual mandate" requirement that everyone must have health insurance or pay a penalty. But it has no immediate impact on consumers. Here's why.

First of all, the individual mandate part of the law isn't scheduled to take effect until 2014. And the overall fate of the law will almost certainly be decided before then by the Supreme Court, because another appeals court has previously upheld the constitutionality of the mandate. Indeed, the 2 to 1 decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is only the latest in a series of contradictory judicial rulings on the law.

Meanwhile, the many parts of the law that already are in effect will continue to be. That's because the 11th circuit judges also ruled that even though the mandate isn't constitutional, the rest of the law is and can go on as Congress intended.

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—Nancy Metcalf