Oklahoma Obamacare Challenge Will Get Its Day in Court

The IRS's role is at issue

Oklahoma won court approval to proceed with a federal lawsuit challenging tax aspects of President Barack Obama's 2010 health-care legislation.

U.S. District Judge Ronald A. White in Muskogee, Oklahoma, yesterday denied the federal government's request for complete dismissal of a lawsuit first filed in 2011 over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

While White tossed claims that the act's mandatory minimum-coverage provision exceeded Congress' powers and that a related Internal Revenue Service rule is unconstitutional as applied to Oklahoma employees, he said the U.S. must defend three counts arising from that same IRS rule.