The nub of the matter has finally been addressed today, although it will be some time before the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in with the only ultimately relevant ruling. The story: Virginia Judge Strikes Down Key Part of Obama Health Care Law.

In a stinging rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal judge Monday invalidated a key provision of the recently passed health care law, saying that it “exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.”

[...]

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson said in a 42-page opinion that the so-called individual mandate provision, which requires all Americans to buy some form of health insurance, would “invite unbridled exercise of the federal police powers.”

The Obama administration had argued that the individual mandate was essential to keep down nationwide health care costs, and that Congress had acted under its authority to regulate interstate commerce. But the judge said an individual’s decision to purchase — or to decline to purchase — health care from a private provider is beyond the “historical reach” the Constitution grants Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

“At its core,” the judge ruled, “this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance, or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage, its about an individual’s right to choose to participate.

In Bob Dylan’s movie “Masked and Anonymous,”a preacher on the radio is heard intermittently, not so much commenting on the action as just commenting on the human condition. One of his most striking assertions is this one:

The only power the government has is to crack down on criminals. When there aren’t enough criminals, you make them. You make so many things a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws.

When the government can effectively make it a crime for you not to buy something (and there is no way to escape the requirement), you need no longer have any doubt as to whether you’re living in the kind of country that the preacher there describes.

Related posts:

• Health care and the Baucus bill
• The beginning of the end of private health insurance
• The agony on Twitter (after Scott Brown wins in Massachusetts)