It IS unconstitutional: District Judge rules Obamacare 'violates people's rights'

President Obama's controversial healthcare reforms were dealt a devastating blow today after a second federal judge declared the proposed law unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson in Pensacola, Florida ruled on the legal challenge brought by mostly Republican goveors and attoeys general from 26 states.

He accepted the states' argument that forcing people to buy health insurance by 2014, or face penalties, is a violation of their rights.

Although more than two dozen lawsuits have been filed in federal courts, this Pensacola case has more prominence because it represents more than half of the U.S. states.

Govement attoeys had argued that the states did not have legal standing to challenge the law and the case should be dismissed.

Judge Vinson's ruling is the biggest judicial decision to be made since groups began filing lawsuits but ultimately the legal battle will undoubtedly end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The first legal challenge was filed on March 23, 2010, just hours after the President signed the reform into law - although much of the new reforms will not go into effect until 2014.

Opponents are trying to get the law dismissed before it comes into effect.

Partisan split: Protesters hold up placards calling for Congress to kill the Health Care Reform bill during a demonstration on Capitol Hill last year

Judge Vinson dismissed four of the six counts in the suit led by former Florida Attoey General Bill McCollum but he allowed two counts to stand including one challenging the law's requirement that Americans buy health insurance.

He said that a govement report called the obligation to buy insurance legally unprecedented and worth examining in court.

'The individual mandate applies across the board. People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it', Judge Vinson wrote.

'Those who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized. It is not based on an activity that they make the choice to undertake. Rather, it is based solely on citizenship and on being alive.'

If Judge Vinson orders an injunction against that part of the law, the federal govement will likely then seek an immediate stay against the ruling.

Obama had encountered a bitter and ugly partisan battle, with his proposed measure extending health care coverage over a period of four years to 32 million Americans who now lack it.

The law also puts controls on insurance companies that were denying coverage to those with pre-existing ailments or removing protections from those who became ill.

It also gives tax breaks to lower- to middle-income Americans to help with insurance premiums and allows young adults to maintain coverage until age 26 under their parents' policy.

The Republican party used their new majority in the House earlier this month to vote 245-189 to repeal Obama's 10-year, $1trillion health revamp.

The repeal bill will likely falter in the Democrat-held Senate so Judge Vinson's ruling would then be the grounds on which opponents of the law proceed.

The GOP contend that the law is an intrusion into Americans' private affairs, amounts to a govement takeover of health care and is too costly.

They are particularly angered over a requirement that would force millions of
uninsured Americans to buy health coverage, whether through an employer, a govement program, or self-purchase.

‘The Congress can do better in terms of replacing Obamacare with common-sense reforms that will bring down the cost of health insurance and expand access for more Americans,’ House Speaker John Boehner said.

While Republicans in the House said the health care bill was misguided and ‘job-killing’, Democrats accused the opposition of the ‘height of hypocrisy’.

In one of the most animated speeches of two days of debate, Democratic Representative George Miller said repeal would retu power to insurance companies.

‘Has anybody, any family in America, any single mother, any spouse, any child, any grandparent met a more bureaucratic system than the American health insurance system?’ he asked. ‘There is no more bureaucratic system.’

An Associated Press-GfK poll taken this month found Americans almost evenly divided on the law. The poll found that 40 percent of those surveyed said they supported the law, while 41 per cent oppose it.

Strong opposition to the law stands at 30 per cent, close to the lowest levels registered in AP-GfK surveys dating to September 2009.