WASHINGTON BUREAU — The 11 U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) ensures that the U.S. Supreme Court will be the ultimate arbiter of the law's constitutionality, but it also further muddies the water as to what benefits employers will have to provide to their employees, industry officials said.

A 3-judge panel of the court, based in Atlanta, rejected the individual health insurance ownership mandate provision in PPACA but upheld the other provisions.

Ed Fensholt, director of the health reform advisory practice at the Lockton Benefit Group, Kansas City, Mo., said the constitutionality of the individual mandate is an issue that the Supreme Court was almost certainly going to take up anyway in the coming months but that the Friday decision "virtually guarantees it."

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