(CNN) -- A federal appeals court in Cincinnati on Wednesday ruled in favor of the Obama administration and Congress, finding a key provision in last year's sweeping health care reform bill constitutional.

The "individual mandate" requiring nearly all Americans purchase health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties -- was challenged in federal courts by a large number of individuals and groups, saying people should not be forced to purchase a product like health insurance. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit panel disagreed.

"We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause," said the three-judge panel on Wednesday, in a 64-page opinion.

Federal court expresses concern over health care reform law

This is the first of three rulings that will emerge from federal appeals courts around the country in coming weeks over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The issue is almost certain to eventually reach the Supreme Court, perhaps by year's end. More than two dozen other legal challenges to the law are floating in lower federal courts.

The PPACA was passed by the Democratic Congress last year, and championed by President Barack Obama.

A key part of the ruling was written by Judge Jeffrey Sutton -- a President George W. Bush appointee and considered a conservative on the court. He said the health care field is different from other streams of "commerce."

"Regulating how citizens pay for what they already receive (health care), never quite know when they will need, and in the case of severe illnesses or emergencies generally will not be able to afford, has few (if any) parallels in modern life. Not every intrusive law is an unconstitutionally intrusive law," he said. "Time assuredly will bring to light the policy strengths and weaknesses of using the individual mandate as part of this national legislation, allowing the peoples' political representatives, rather than their judges, to have the primary say over its utility."

Sutton added, "The government has the better of the arguments." He was supported by Judge Boyce Martin -- who is considered a liberal and was named to the bench by President Carter. He turned aside the argument by opponents of the law that economic "inactivity" cannot be regulated by the national legislature.

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