A Republican-led challenge to the Democrats' most ambitious social legislation in a generation goes before the Supreme Court on Monday, with President Obama's healthcare law hanging in the balance.
The court's ruling, expected by the end of June, may decide whether the Constitution puts any limit on Congress' power to regulate not just healthcare, but the entire economy.
- The arguments begin with a technical discussion of whether the proposed penalty for not buying health insurance amounts to a tax. If the justices find that it is, under an old law they may have to postpone ruling on most of the issues until after the penalty goes into effect in 2014.
- On Tuesday, the justices will get to the heart of the matter, debating whether Congress has the authority to make people purchase a product: health insurance.
- On Wednesday, they will talk about whether the rest of the law can stand on its own even if the insurance mandate is struck down, and the separate issue of whether the federal government's plan to fund a massive expansion of state Medicaid programs violates states' rights under the Constitution.
Since 1936, the justices have not struck down a major federal regulatory law on the grounds that Congress went too far. The court's forbearance on matters touching Congress' authority to regulate commerce has allowed Washington's power to grow, to protect civil rights and the environment, to ensure safer automobiles and drugs, and to help boost the wages and benefits of workers.
All the while, however, conservatives and business groups have insisted there must be a limit. Otherwise, they say, an all-powerful federal government would be free to write its own rules.
Such a limit -- if the Constitution indeed sets one -- is at the heart of the healthcare case.
