A class action lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of a key provision in President Obama’s healthcare law – the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — will not be dismissed. That’s the ruling United States District Judge Keith Starrett passed down in Hattiesburg, Miss. last Monday.

The lawsuit, filed by Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel (R-Ellisville) on behalf of Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and other state citizens, attacks the individual mandate provision of the law. The provision, which goes into effect starting in 2014, requires all persons without health insurance to purchase an approved policy or face a penalty.

“From a Constitutional basis, the government exceeded its authority,” McDaniel said.

More than a dozen other lawsuits across the country contest the PPACA on similar grounds, saying that it violates the Constitution. However, two key differences make this particular lawsuit significant, according to McDaniel.

“First of all, it’s a victory so far, and some of the other lawsuits have not been victorious,” he said, also pointing out that this was a suit brought on by private citizens, not just representatives of the state as in other cases.

Also unlike other lawsuits, the one filed by McDaniel asserts that the individual mandate violates the patient’s right to medical privacy. That borrows from the precedent on privacy set in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, which affirmed a woman’s right to have an abortion.

“If a party is forced to enter into another contract with another entity and forced to share private information and data such as medical records, that violates the right to privacy,” McDaniel said.

Although the lawsuit only attacks the individual mandate, proponents of the President’s healthcare law believe that the individual mandate is necessary for the rest of the law to work. That’s because another major provision of the law is the one that forbids insurance companies from refusing to insure those with preexisting medical conditions.

“If the individual mandate fails, the court could still theoretically allow the rest of the law to survive,” McDaniel agreed. “But practically, the law could not survive. As long as the preexisting exclusion remains in, people are going to wait until they are sick to buy insurance, making it impossible for healthcare companies to survive.

In other words, McDaniel said, if the lawsuit against the individual mandate provision succeeds, the entire law would fall apart.

McDaniel anticipates that the act will be ruled unconstitutional, at which point the case would head to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Eventually, he said, the case could head to the United States Supreme Court for a final decision.