Supreme Court To Decide Constitutionality Of Health Law

By Catherine Morrisey-Ribeiro

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear over five hours of arguments regarding the Health Care Reform Law. The lawsuit, brought by 23 states, challenges many different aspects of the law. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on three main disputes: The individual-mandate clause, which states all Americans must have health insurance or be fined for noncompliance; if Congress lacked the power to consider the individual-mandate separate form the overall Health Care Law (if the Supreme Court finds Congress did lack this power, it theoretically means the entire Health Care Law would be Unconstitutional); whether states are violating a federal law called the Anti-Injunction Act, which prevents any agency from prematurely filing suits against taxes which have yet to be collected. The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on the issues in early March, 2012.