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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Supreme Court Agrees to Rule on Health Law

    NOVEMBER 14, 2011, 11:52 A.M. ET.

    Supreme Court Agrees to Rule on Health Law .

    By BRENT KENDALL

    WASHINGTON—The long-awaited Supreme Court showdown over the Obama administration's health-care overhaul formally began Monday as the justices agreed to consider a high-profile challenge to the law.

    The court, in a short written order, agreed to hear a challenge brought by a group of Republican governors and attorneys general from 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business and two individual plaintiffs.

    The case raises several issues, but chief among them is this: Did Congress exceed its constitutional powers when it required most individuals to carry health insurance or pay a penalty?

    The court is expected to hear oral arguments in March, with a decision expected by the end of June. That timeline means the court will rule on President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement during the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign.

    Lower courts have issued conflicting rulings on whether the law's individual insurance mandate is constitutional. The Justice Department, which is defending the law, and several challengers all filed petitions asking the Supreme Court to resolve the disagreement.

    The challengers, who view the insurance requirement as an unprecedented intrusion on individual liberty, argue that Congress can't use its interstate commerce powers to regulate citizens who choose not to participate in the health-insurance market.

    The Obama administration argues the insurance mandate is a valid way to address a national crisis in which the uninsured impose huge costs on the U.S. health-care system. It also says the provision is an essential part of the law's insurance reforms, which require insurers to accept all prospective customers, even if they have pre-existing medical conditions.

    The White House issued a brief statement Monday saying the health law has helped more than one million young people get health insurance by staying on their parents' plans. "We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree," it said.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who has tried to repeal the law, said it "represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional expansion of the federal government into the daily lives of every American" and called on the Supreme Court to strike it down.

    In the event the court does so, it also agreed to rule on whether the rest of the health-care overhaul can remain intact. The law's challengers are seeking to void the entire law, while the Obama administration argues that most of the law's provisions aren't connected to the mandate and should remain in place even if the insurance requirement is invalidated.

    Many of the law's provisions, including state-based exchanges where consumers could comparison-shop for coverage, are scheduled to take effect in 2014.

    The Supreme Court also agreed to consider a procedural question that could preclude it from issuing a major constitutional ruling: Do the insurance-mandate penalties amount to a type of tax that can only be challenged after it is collected, rather than before? If the answer is yes, then courts wouldn't have legal jurisdiction to consider such challenges until individuals start paying penalties after the mandate goes into effect in 2014.

    Previously
    Health Law Survives Another Appeal 11/9/11
    Long-Term Care Gets the Ax 10/15/11
    Election Looms in Health-Law Review 8/17/11
    .
    Nearly all courts that considered the matter have decided that the challenges can proceed now. But a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., reached a contrary conclusion in September.

    In addition to insurance-mandate issues, the Supreme Court said it would consider the state challengers' legal attack against the health-care law's expansion of Medicaid, a federal-state partnership that provides health care to low-income Americans. Lower courts ruled for the Obama administration on this issue.

    Only the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has struck down the insurance mandate as unconstitutional, ruling that Congress couldn't command that individuals purchase insurance products.

    Three other appeals courts have ruled for the Obama administration, which scored a notable victory just last week when a leading conservative judge, Laurence Silberman of the District of Columbia Circuit, wrote that court's opinion upholding the law. The ruling served as a reminder that the outcome of the case may not fall strictly along ideological lines.

    Conservative justices hold a narrow majority on the Supreme Court, and their views will be crucial.

    The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, and courts have interpreted that power broadly. A key question in the health-care cases has been whether the insurance mandate exceeds the outer reaches of that power.

    Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both appointees of President George W. Bush, haven't had an opportunity to express their views on the commerce power since they joined the high court.

    Justice Antonin Scalia also is likely to be a key focus of attention. The conservative justice joined two rulings in 1995 and 2000 that placed limits Congress' commerce power. But Justice Scalia also embraced a broader view of that power in 2005, saying Congress had the authority to prohibit seriously ill Californians from growing marijuana for their personal medical use, even though a state law allowed it.

    Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@dowjones.com

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 19676.html
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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    UPDATE 4-US top court to take on Obama healthcare law

    By James Vicini

    WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide the fate of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, with an election-year ruling due by July on the U.S. healthcare system's biggest overhaul in nearly 50 years.

    A Supreme Court spokeswoman said oral arguments would take place in March. There will be a total of 5-1/2 hours of argument. The court would be expected to rule during its current session, which lasts through June.

    The decision had been widely expected since September, when the Obama administration asked the country's highest court to uphold the centerpiece insurance provision and 26 of the 50 states separately asked that the entire law be struck down.

    At the heart of the legal battle is whether the U.S. Congress overstepped its powers by requiring all Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty, a provision known as the individual mandate.

    Legal experts and policy analysts said the healthcare vote may be close on the nine-member court, with five conservatives and four liberals. It could come down to moderate conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often casts the decisive vote.

    The law, aiming to provide medical coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans, has wide ramifications for company costs and for the health sector, affecting health insurers, drugmakers, device companies and hospitals.

    A decision by July would take the healthcare issue to the heart of a presidential election campaign that ends with a vote on Nov. 6 next year. Polls show Americans deeply divided over the overhaul, Obama's signature domestic achievement.

    A ruling striking down the law, while Obama seeks another four-year term, would be a huge blow for him legally and politically.

    A ruling upholding the law would vindicate Obama legally, but might make healthcare an even bigger political issue for the leading Republican presidential candidates, all of whom oppose it.

    Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, said the ruling would have a polarizing effect on the Republican and Democratic faithful but a minimal impact on Obama's standing with middle-of-the-road voters who often decide elections.

    "My guess is that for voters in the middle if the Supreme Court says the law is constitutional that probably makes them a little bit happier with Obama. If they say it's unconstitutional that may make them a little less happy," he said.

    The high court could leave in place the entire law, it could strike down the individual insurance mandate or other provisions, it could invalidate the entire law or it could put off a ruling on the mandate until after it has taken effect.

    Also on Monday the administration, in the latest in a string of executive moves to sidestep a divided Congress, announced up to $1 billion for a program to support healthcare innovation to cut costs and improve care.

    WHITE HOUSE PLEASED

    White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the administration was pleased the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. "We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree," he said.

    Those challenging the law also voiced optimism.

    Karen Harned of the National Federation of Independent Business said: "We are confident in the strength of our case and hopeful that we will ultimately prevail. Our nation's job-creators depend on a decision being reached before the harmful effects of this new law become irreversible."

    Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose state is leading the challenge to the law, said: "We are hopeful that by June 2012 we will have a decision that protects Americans' and individuals' liberties and limits the federal government's power."

    BernsteinResearch, which provides investment analysis, predicted the most likely outcomes were the law being upheld or a decision being delayed until 2015.

    Paul Heldman, senior analyst at Potomac Research Group, which provides Washington policy research for the investment community, said he still leaned toward the view that the law's requirement that individuals buy insurance will be upheld.

    "We continue to have a high level of conviction that the Supreme Court will leave much of the health reform law standing, even if finds unconstitutional the requirement that individuals buy coverage," he wrote in a recent note.

    After Obama signed the law in March 2010 following a bruising political fight in Congress, the legal battle began, with challenges by more than half of the states and others. The Supreme Court has long been expected to have final say on the law's constitutionality.

    OTHER LANDMARKS

    The administration has said other landmark laws, such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, faced similar legal challenges that all failed.

    For a fully functional new system by 2014, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, "It's important that we put to rest once and for all the issue that maybe the law will disappear, maybe the law will be struck down."

    The states also are challenging the expansion of Medicaid, a federal-state partnership that provides healthcare to poor Americans, on the grounds Congress unconstitutionally forced the expansion on the states by threatening to withhold funds.

    The dispute reached the Supreme Court after conflicting rulings by U.S. appeals courts.

    Appeals courts in Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., upheld the individual mandate. An appeals court in Atlanta struck it down, but refused to invalidate the rest of the law. An appeals court in Virginia ruled the mandate could not be decided until 2015, when the penalties for not having insurance are imposed.

    The Supreme Court cases are National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, No. 11-393; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, No. 11-398; and Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services, No. 11-400. (Additional reporting by Alister Bull, Lily Kuo and Anna Yukhananov and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Cynthia Osterman)

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/ ... LS20111114
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  3. #3
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    RELATED

    Health Care Is Changing Inexorably, Despite Federal Uncertainty

    http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-255191.html
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