Today is going to be an interesting date at the U.S. Supreme Court. If you’re a political junkie, you’ll also likely hear a paragraph or two this evening on your drive home or when you flip on the TV about today’s happening at the Supreme Court.
There are essentially four issues involved in the challenge to the constitutionality to Obamacare, and briefs on three of those four points are due to be filed later today in the Supreme Court.
First, the government is set to file its brief on why it views the individual mandate as constitutionally valid. Second, a Court-appointed lawyer is set to file a brief on the issue of whether the federal anti-injunction statute precludes a challenge to Obamacare until it goes into full effect in 2014. Third, the 26 states that are challenging Obamacare in the case currently pending before the Supreme Court are set to file a brief today on what parts, if any, could go into effect in the event the individual mandate is struck down by the Court. The fourth issue–the legality of Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid costs to the states–is set to be briefed this next Tuesday, January 10.
All in all, fans and opponents of Obamacare are going to have plenty to read and digest over the next few days.
Why is a discussion of Obamacare on this tax blog?
Simple– the IRS is the federal agency given the task of enforcing the individual mandate, and one of the justifications for the constitutionality of Obamacare, according to its defenders, is that the fine or penalty that is imposed for failure to purchase insurance is, in fact, a tax (contrary to what the President told George Stephanopoulous in a well-known interview).
Listen up, political junkies. Obamacare is back on the radar. As the year progresses, expect to hear more and more about Obamacare as we move closer both to the election of 2012 and to the Supreme Court’s review of the law’s constitutionality.