Supreme Court To Take On Health Care Reform
Yesterday the Supreme Court confirmed that, as expected for this year’s term term, it will rule on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Court plans to hear 5.5 hours of arguments on the case by March of next year; a ruling is expected in June.
The ruling aims to answer two essential questions: is the individual mandate, which requires individuals to purchase health insurance, is constitutional? And if not, should the entire piece of legislation be nullified?
The federal government has pushed through various consumer protection and premium regulation pieces in the act; the law also provides a number of options for individuals to get insured, such as the new federal and state-run health exchanges. Florida, leading a coalition of 26 states, is spearheading the case against the law on the grounds that the government cannot mandate the purchase of health insurance.
Update: Shortly after the confirmation of the hearing White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer released a statement saying, “We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”
Posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 2:23 am. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below. Your comments will appear immediately, but the author reserves the right to delete innapropriate comments.