Robert Barnes of the Washington Post is reporting that President Barack Obama and the U.S. Justice Department have asked the Supreme Court to review the president's controversial 2010 health care law. The administration said it was confident that the Affordable Care Act would be upheld as a valid exercise of federal power, just as Social Security and the Civil Rights Act were.
If the court agrees to hear the case in the term that begins Monday, it would almost certainly render its decision by the end of deliberations in June, which would be in the midst of President Obama's re-election campaign.
The administration called upon the justices to review the decision of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, which is the only appeals court to say Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. The law requires almost every American to have health insurance.
"Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark legislation such as the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act, and all of those challenges failed," the Justice Department said in a statement. "We believe the challenges to the Affordable Care Act — like the one in the 11th Circuit — will also ultimately fail and that the Supreme Court will uphold the law."
It will be interesting to see if the Supreme Court, which is stacked with conservatives, will follow the precedent set by Social Security. Society is only as strong as its weakest member. To have millions of Americans uninsured and unable to get help is unconscionable. Time will tell if the Supreme Court will legally recognize and uphold this important law.
Read more at the Washington Post.
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