Supreme Court Agrees to Decide Health Care Cases

As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review (pdf) cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The Court accepted the appeals filed in three cases that question the validity of the healthcare reform law, and will hear more than five hours of arguments during the Court’s spring session. While the petitioners in the three cases presented a number of issues for adjudication, the Court will undertake review of the following issues only:

• Whether the Affordable Care Act’s provisions requiring virtually all individuals to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty as of 2014 –commonly referred to as the law’s individual mandate – is constitutional. Specifically, in enacting the individual mandate, did Congress exceed its enumerated powers under the Constitution?
• If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, do the remaining portions of the law still stand, or is the entire law rendered invalid because it is non-severable?
• Is the law’s expansion of the Medicaid program constitutional?
• Does the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) bar challenges to the individual mandate?

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