Legal Challenges

“It will make the process of providing healthcare for the American people even more difficult,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

Legal insiders believe the court will strike down all or part of Obama's healthcare law.

In a letter to the court, the senators write that broadcasting the decision would "bolster public confidence" in the judiciary.

The Supreme Court’s landmark healthcare ruling is just days away. More than 10,000 users tuned in for live updates Monday morning at SCOTUSblog but, as expected, the court didn’t release its highly anticipated healthcare ruling. The next possibility is Thursday, though the odds still seem to favor a ruling next week.

As the decision nears, focus is turning once again to the important issue of severability — whether the healthcare reform law’s individual mandate would have to take the whole law down with it, if it’s found to be unconstitutional. The justices can do just about anything they want on the severability question: strike down the whole law; strike out only the mandate; or strike the mandate and certain other provisions.

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The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling within the next two weeks on President Obama’s healthcare law.

The Supreme Court is prepared to handle any protests that arise after the decision on Obama’s healthcare law.

The Supreme Court justice characterized the current term, highlighted by several weighty cases, as "more than usually taxing."

Congressional Republicans have made clear they have no interest in trying to “improve” President Obama’s healthcare law — only in repealing it, or whatever parts of it they can. But the Supreme Court could easily throw a wrench in that strategy.

Let’s say the court strikes down just the mandate, leaving the rest of the law intact. The expensive policies the mandate was designed to offset — guaranteed issue and community rating — are still on the books and still set to take effect in 2014. And let’s also say Republicans come away from Election Day with something less than the House, the White House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. The GOP probably couldn’t pass a bill to fully repeal what’s left of the Affordable Care Act.

So, with those expensive policies on the horizon, what would Congress do? Lawmakers could try to repeal just the offending provisions, which also happen to be the most popular pieces of healthcare reform. Or they could look for a way to replace the mandate, likely angering the Republican base.

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The party hasn't come together around a set of policies to replace the healthcare law if it’s struck down.

The Obama administration apparently doesn’t have much of a plan for moving forward if the Supreme Court strikes down all or part of its signature healthcare law. Although administration officials — including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — keep saying the White House will be “ready” for any ruling, they’ve declined to offer many specifics.

A new feature in The New Yorker suggests the White House doesn’t have a plan that goes much further than criticizing the Supreme Court as activist and political.

“The strategy is to just go on the offensive and say, ‘Look at Citizens United, look at the health-care decision, look at Bush v. Gore,” a former White House aide told the magazine. “We have an out-of-control activist court, and Romney will make it worse. That’s Plan A. Plan B is nothing.”

The former official also poured cold water on one policy alternative to the individual mandate — forcing people to sign up for insurance when they sign up for other government services, such as food stamps. That approach seemed “less constitutional than the mandate” when it was under consideration, the former aide said.

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