(Bloomberg News) President Barack Obama's health-care legislation requiring almost all Americans to have medical insurance beginning in 2014 is constitutional, a U.S. appeals court ruled.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington today upheld the measure Obama signed into law in March 2010 by a 2-1 vote. It was the third appellate court to rule on the constitutionality of the statute, and the second to reject a challenge to its insurance mandate by opponents who argue the government has no right to force anyone into purchasing a service or product.

"Broad regulation is an inherent feature of Congress's constitutional authority in this area; to regulate complex, nationwide economic problems is to necessarily deal in generalities," Judge Laurence Silberman wrote. "Congress reasonably determined that as a class, the uninsured create market failures; thus, the lack of harm attributable to any particular uninsured individual, like their lack of overt participation in a market, is of no consequence."

The Washington appeals court may be the last to rule on the law before the U.S. Supreme Court takes it up. The Obama administration asked the high court to review an Aug. 12 ruling by the appeals court in Atlanta, which found the insurance mandate is unconstitutional.

Lost Challenges

The Christian faith-based Thomas More Law Center, which lost challenges to the legislation in a Detroit federal court and at a U.S. appeals court in Cincinnati, also asked the Supreme Court to review its case.

The high court justices will consider whether to take the cases at their conference on Nov. 10.

A U.S. Court of Appeals panel in Richmond, Virginia, addressing two cases in a pair of Sept. 8 rulings, concluded it was blocked from ruling on the merits of the law by a statute that generally bars challenging taxes before they're collected or assessed.

The law provides for a tax penalty to be levied on almost any American who fails obtain health coverage.

Attorney Edward L. White III of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who argued the case for the challengers, said he and his colleagues haven't decided whether to seek full-court review by the circuit court or seek review by the Supreme Court.

Linchpin Of Law

Government lawyers have called the mandatory coverage provision the linchpin of the health-care law because it would bring younger and healthier people into the insurance pool. While expanding the number of people paying premiums, the law bars insurers from rejecting anyone due to pre-existing conditions.

The five people who filed the lawsuit in Washington in June 2010 argue that the government has no right to compel Americans to buy anything, and claim that they and their families could face combined tax penalties of more than $27,000 if they fail to obtain insurance. One of the plaintiffs has since been dropped from the case.

In February, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled the mandate was lawful and dismissed their suit.

Silberman, an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, voted with U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, an appointee of Democrat Jimmy Carter, to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act act, rejecting arguments that Congress lacked the power to enact the legislation.

'Disproportionate Harm'

Agreeing with government lawyers, Silberman said the health-care market is unique in that "virtually everyone will enter or affect it and because the uninsured inflict a disproportionate harm on the rest of the market," when they require care.

U.S. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a nominee of Republican President George W. Bush, said in a dissent that he doesn't think the courts have jurisdiction to hear the case.

Kavanaugh found the penalty for failure to obtain coverage, which will first be imposed in 2015, tantamount to a tax because it's to be paid when filing federal tax return.

In his 65-page dissent, he said federal law bars courts from considering pre-enforcement lawsuits challenging the collection of taxes.

"The tax penalty is the only sanction for failing to have health insurance," he wrote. "And the IRS - and only the IRS - may assess, collect, and enforce the tax penalty."

Accordingly, the appeals court should have rejected jurisdiction of the suit and returned the matter to the lower court with instructions that it be dismissed, Kavanaugh said.

Silberman said the law barring such suits restrains only the IRS's assessment and collection of taxes.

"It has never been applied to bar suits brought to enjoin regulatory requirements that bear no relation to tax revenues or enforcement," Silberman wrote.

The case is Seven-Sky v. Holder, 11-5047, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (Washington).