(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.) is insisting that the new health care law she voted for last month does not mandate that individuals buy health insurance, despite language in the law that plainly says otherwise.

At an April 5 town hall meeting in Fort Lauderdale, a constituent asked Wasserman Shultz where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandate that individuals buy health insurance. She responded that the new health care law did not require individuals to buy health insurance.

In a written statement to CNSNews.com on Wednesday, her press secretary, Jonathan Beeton, said it was true that the health care law did not mandate that individuals buy health insurance and that Wasserman Schultz stood by her assertion at the townhall meeting.

“We actually have not required in this law that you carry health insurance,” Wasserman Schultz said at the townhall meeting.

“Yes, this is accurate,” Beeton said in his statement to CNSNews.com.  “You have a choice of insuring yourself with affordable coverage, or paying an assessment that will offset the burden you place on other insured Americans and taxpayers by not being insured.”Rest here>>>