UPDATED AT 5:13 p.m. PDT Wednesday.

The Obama administration and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a major small business group, on Wednesday filed separate petitions to the Supreme Court, asking the panel to weigh the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform package. 

(Courtesy of Truthout.org, via Creative Commons)

This comes after a three-judge panel struck down the “individual mandate” portion of the law, and several other federal courts showed division on the issue.

The NFIB argues that provision in the law that requires people to buy health insurance is in violation of the commerce clause in the Constitution and that the entire law cannot stand without the individual mandate in place.

They contend that the law has caused “uncertainty” among businesses, adding further friction in an already slow economic recovery.

“While the survival of the new health-care law remains an open question, small businesses and individuals will continue to face uncertainty and trepidation, hesitant to hire or expand,” said Karen Harned, executive director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center, in a press release. 

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court for its Constitutional evaluation of the law after declining to appeal to the 11th for a full-court review. There has been widespread speculation about why the Obama administration would bypass the 11th Circuit and go directly to the Supreme Court.

This comes after the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report showing that annual health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose 9 percent in 2011 to over $15,000.

The health care law provides small businesses with a tax incentive to buy their employees health insurance and meet certain requirements, but most employers have not taken advantage of this.