On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court presided over two hours of oral argument on the most publicized aspect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) under review: whether the individual mandate is constitutional. The minimum coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act provides that, beginning in 2014, non-exempted federal income taxpayers who fail to maintain a minimum level of health insurance for themselves or their dependents will owe a penalty. The key question debated on Tuesday in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida was whether this individual mandate provision is a valid exercise of Congress’s power to regulate commerce, or whether – as some justices seemed to suggest – it amounts to an unconstitutional legislative overreach. Continue reading this entry at Littler's Washington DC Employment Law Update.