Supreme Court to Decide Fate of Health Care Reform in 2012

Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear a challenge to the massive health care reform law (also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA) enacted in March 2010. The Court revealed how important it considers this case by scheduling five and a half hours of oral arguments, when it usually schedules only an hour for oral arguments.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from a decision by the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the only appellate court to rule that any part of the PPACA is unconstitutional. In August, the Eleventh Circuit held 2-1 that the individual mandate, which would require most individuals to obtain health insurance or pay a fine, exceeded the power of the U.S. Congress under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. According to the majority opinion, “This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives.”

Although there have been a number of legal challenges to the PPACA, the Eleventh Circuit case was particularly interesting to a lot of people because it was filed by governors and attorneys general of 26 states that oppose the health care reform law. The district court that initially heard the case determined that since the individual mandate couldn’t be severed from the PPACA as a whole, “the entire Act must be declared void.” The Eleventh Circuit, however, took a different stance and held that the entire law didn’t need to be struck down, only the individual mandate provision.

The Supreme Court also agreed to decide several other PPACA-related issues besides the constitutionality of the individual mandate, including whether:

• the individual mandate can be severed from the rest of the law if the Court finds it is unconstitutional;
• the challenge to the individual mandate is barred by the Anti-Injunction Act; and
• the law unconstitutionally expands the states’ Medicaid eligibility and coverage thresholds.

The Court is expected to hear oral arguments by March 2012 and issue a decision regarding the health care reform law by the end of June 2012. We’ll continue to keep you updated as the health care reform saga continues.

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