Baptist Press - Historic: Supreme Court to Examine Nat'l Health Care Law

By Michael Foust, SBCBaptistPress.org

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it would review in March the constitutionality of President Obama's landmark national health care law, setting aside five and a half hours of oral arguments in what promises to be a dramatic moment not only in the nation's history but in the 2012 presidential race.

From the moment Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in March 2010, it has remained controversial. Pro-lifers opposed it because the law, they said, broke new ground by allowing tax dollars to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortion. Other opponents of the law have focused on the law's requirement that all individuals must purchase a health care plan -- an "individual mandate" requirement that violates the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause, they say. . . .

The American Center for Law and Justice, which represented more than 100 House members in asking the court to take up the case, applauded the court's action. The House members, ACLJ wrote in its request to the Supreme Court, believe that "the Constitution does not empower Congress to require Americans to purchase and maintain Federal Government-approved health insurance from a private company for the rest of their lives or pay an annual penalty." . . .

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