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Bulletin: Federal Judge Rules Against Obamacare; No Immediate Effect

The New York Times reports here:

A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and insuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below.

Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by former President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff’s request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law.

Stay tuned for comment, but meanwhile, here's a Kaiser Health News column about what may happen when the dispute over the law goes to the Supreme Court. Stuart Taylor writes that rulings like today's "illustrate the growing prevalence of party-line judging in this country. But they will have zero impact – except as transitory debating points in the political battles still raging in Congress and the states — if and when the Supreme Court decides the law’s fate."

This program aired on December 13, 2010. The audio for this program is not available.

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Carey Goldberg Editor, CommonHealth
Carey Goldberg is the editor of WBUR's CommonHealth section.

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