{"id":1,"date":"2012-01-26T19:09:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T19:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/?p=1"},"modified":"2012-06-27T12:45:50","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T17:45:50","slug":"scotus_healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/2012\/01\/26\/scotus_healthcare\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Supreme Court Health Care (&#8220;Obamacare&#8221;) Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 id=\"internal-source-marker_0.21933790724675706\" dir=\"ltr\">Understanding the Legal Issues in Health Care Reform <\/h1>\n<p>The Legal Information Institute has set up this mini-website to provide straightforward, unbiased legal analysis for journalists, students, teachers, and anyone interested in the legal issues the Supreme Court will address in its review of the health care law.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This site\u2019s content is by the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/cert\/\"> LII Supreme Court Bulletin<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/cert\/11board\"> Editorial Board<\/a>. For more Supreme Court analysis and timely case decision notification: <a href=\"http:\/\/liibulletin.law.cornell.edu\/\">Subscribe to the LII Bulletin<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">Background<\/h2>\n<p>On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed a comprehensive health care reform bill into law: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). A number of states and organizations challenged the law in federal court.<\/p>\n<p>Those lawsuits made their way through the courts, leading up to the current Supreme Court review of the law. Perhaps signaling the importance of the health care law to this Court, the Supreme Court has set aside an unprecedented three days, March 26-28, to hear arguments on both sides on the issues.<\/p>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">The Issues<\/h2>\n<p>Look for the Supreme Court to address the following major issues in its review of the law, and follow the links for deeper legal analysis:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Issue 1: The Anti-Injunction Act (AIA). Can the Court even hear arguments about the \u201cindividual mandate\u201d (below) now, or must it wait until 2014 when the law takes effect?<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/tax-anti-injunction-act\/\"> Read our backgrounder on the Anti-Injunction Act<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/2012\/03\/12\/anti-injunction-act-preview-dept-of-health-human-servs-v-florida-11-398\/\">Dept. of HHS v. Florida AIA case preview<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Issue 2: The Individual Mandate. The most controversial provision in the health care law requires everyone to have health insurance, or else be penalized. Can the government require individuals carry insurance?<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/individual-mandate-backgrounder\/\"> Read our Individual Mandate Backgrounder<\/a>, and our<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/2012\/03\/12\/minimum-coverage-provision-preview-dept-of-health-and-human-servs-v-florida-11-398\/\"> Dept. of HHS v. Florida, Minimum Coverage case preview<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Issue 3: \u201cPenalty\u201d vs. \u201cTax.\u201d The legality of the individual mandate may hinge on the court\u2019s interpretation of whether the law requires those without insurance to pay a \u201ctax\u201d or a \u201cpenalty.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/penalty-v-tax\/\">Read our Penalty or Tax Backgrounder<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Issue 4: The Guaranteed Issue Provision of the Act prevents health insurers from denying coverage based on a person\u2019s health. But if the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/individual-mandate-backgrounder\/\">individual mandate<\/a> is ruled unconstitutional and the rest of the Act remains in place, this guaranteed issue provision will greatly increase the cost of providing insurance. Can the Court invalidate the mandate and leave intact the rest of the law? <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/guaranteed-issue-provision\/\">Read our Gauranteed Issue Provision Backgrounder<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/2012\/03\/12\/severability-preview-national-federation-of-independent-business-v-sebelius-11-393-and-florida-v-department-of-health-and-human-services-11-400\/\">Severability preview<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Issue 5: Medicaid. The new health care law promises federal funds to states that adopt the law\u2019s Medicaid expansion, and withholds funds from states that do not. Is the way in which the Act approaches Medicaid expansion within Congress\u2019 power? <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/medicaid\/\">Read our Medicaid Backgrounder<\/a> and our <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/2012\/03\/12\/medicaid-preview-florida-v-department-of-health-and-human-services-11-400\/\">Florida v. Dept. of HHS case preview<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 dir=\"ltr\">More Resources on this Site:<\/h2>\n<p>The PPACA makes major changes to Medicare. While not specifically at issue for the Supreme Court, we have a<a href=\"..\/medicare\/\"> Medicare Backgrounder<\/a> that analyzes the law\u2019s effects on Medicare.<\/p>\n<p>We have also created a <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/glossary\/\">glossary<\/a> of the legal terminology related to the health care reform legal debate.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Understanding the Legal Issues in Health Care Reform The Legal Information Institute has set up this mini-website to provide straightforward, unbiased legal analysis for journalists, students, teachers, and anyone interested in the legal issues the Supreme Court will address in its review of the health care law.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6064],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.law.cornell.edu\/healthcarecases\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}