Hurricane Obamacare Hits the Supreme Court

Today is the day Hurricane Obamacare makes landfall in the U.S. Supreme Court. The case – a conglomeration of cases, actually – will be argued today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Today’s argument is preliminary and procedural, and it addresses whether an arcane law, the Anti-injunction Act, requires the Court to wait until 2015, when someone has actually been penalized under the individual mandate provision, to take up the constitutionality of Obamacare. The main showdown is Tuesday, when the Court will hear argument on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance. Wednesday’s argument will concern whether the rest of Obamacare can survive should the Court strike down the individual mandate. For a succinct, helpful guide to the arguments, see this article by The Economist.