A divided 2-1 panel of the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta found the law’s “individual mandate” section, requiring nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties — to be an improper exercise of federal authority.

“The individual mandate exceeds Congress’s enumerated commerce power and is unconstitutional,” wrote Chief Judge Joel Dubina. “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.”

Significantly, the court concluded even though that key section to be unconstitutional, the entire law need not be set aside.