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 an individual purchase 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," wrote Judge Laurence Silberman, who has a reputation as one of the court's most conservative judges.