San Francisco is now set to implement a critical part of its universal health care program, based on a ruling granted by a panel of three federal judges Wednesday. The ruling comes even though the legal debate about the plan, the first of its kind in the United States, continues unabated.

The three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit arrived at the decision to let San Francisco carry out the key part of the plan unanimously. Based on the decision, the city of San Francisco can ask any business with over 20 employees to provide for the health care costs of its staff.

According to the law, any business with more than 20 employees has to contribute a minimum of $1.17 to $1.76 an hour towards each employee’s health insurance. The contribution can go to any of a number of health care plans, including direct payment of medical bills, payment to Healthy San Francisco, and others.

Officials of San Francisco city say the ruling will work in favor of at least 20,000 people who do not have any form of health care coverage. The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco had enacted the law in 2006, which was to be effective from January 1 this year. However, things heated up after a local restaurant group took the matter to court, claiming the law would be against a federal statute dating back to 1974.

The restaurant group claimed the 1974 statute barred the existence of conflicting local, state, and federal health care plans. A judge of the Federal District Court, Judge Jeffrey S. White, suspended the law in December last year.

The case took another twist this past Wednesday, with the circuit court’s Judge William A. Fletcher, one of the three judges on the panel constituted for the case, saying there was a strong chance case would go in favor of the city and then handing out a temporary stay order against the verdict handed down by the district court till the appeal in its entirety is heard.

The other two federal judges on the panel, Judge Stephen Reinhardt and Judge Alfred T. Goodwin joined Judge Fletcher in writing that ‘the balance of hardships tips sharply in favor of the city.’ They also added that the stay would be in the interest of the public.

The attorney for San Francisco city, Dennis Herrera, said the judges’ ruling would be a big boost for the city’s health insurance initiative, which already has 8,000 city residents on its roster. He said, “It’s a wonderful ruling, we’re absolutely thrilled. It’s an important victory for the thousands of San Franciscans that will be able to receive health care in coming months.”

Daniel Scherotter, however, has a different view of things. The incoming president of the restaurant group that originally filed the claim, Golden Gate Restaurant Association called the plan expensive and unsustainable, and said there possibly were better ways of going about it.

The city’s health care initiative is just one of many that have sprung out as irritation grows in the nation thanks to the speed at which health care reforms are progressing. The court, though did not give its total support for the law, though it did allow its implementation.

In the ruling, Judge Fletcher wrote, “There may be better ways to provide health care than to require private employers to foot the bill. But our task is a narrow one and it is beyond our province to evaluate the wisdom of the ordinance.”