Supreme Court To Mull Review of Antireform Lawsuits Next Month

During a private conference on Nov. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to discuss whether it will review any of the lawsuits against the federal health reform law, CQ HealthBeat reports (Norman, CQ HealthBeat, 10/26).

Four lawsuits are pending before the court, including the multistate lawsuit in which 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business are plaintiffs. The high court must decide on which issues it wants to rule. It might decide to consider only challenges to the individual mandate or combine issues from several different cases (California Healthline, 10/11).

The justices received petitions for three of the cases on Wednesday, according to the Supreme Court docket. The lawsuit filed by Virginia was not delivered to the justices because the briefs for the case have not all been filed (CQ HealthBeat, 10/26).

The conference will be the justices' first formal discussion on the overhaul (Baker [1], "Healthwatch," The Hill, 10/26). If they decide to hear one or more of the cases, they could announce a decision that day, or in a written list of orders that is scheduled for release on Nov. 14, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal reports.

Should the court decide to review the reform law, oral arguments likely would be scheduled for early spring 2012, with a decision by the end of June (Kendall, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, 10/26).

AHIP Submits Brief to High Court

America's Health Insurance Plans in a brief submitted to the high court urged the justices to address the issue of whether striking down the individual mandate means invalidating the entire law, The Hill's "Healthwatch" reports.

In the brief, AHIP argued that severing the mandate from other provisions in the health reform law would make the law unworkable and dramatically increase the cost of insurance coverage (Baker [2], "Healthwatch," The Hill, 10/26).

AHIP also wrote that the court should act quickly because health insurers are trying to move ahead with implementation in a "cloud of uncertainty about the durability of the monumental changes being made and the legal regime that will govern insurance plans going forward" (CQ HealthBeat, 10/26).