(Bloomberg News) The Obama administration today will defend a requirement that Americans obtain insurance or pay a penalty -- the core of the president's health care overhaul -- in a Supreme Court case central to the Republican campaign to take over the White House.
A group of 26 states will say that Congress exceeded its authority in approving the mandate, as the justices hear their second of three days of arguments. The government, defending the president's signature legislative victory, will contend that Congress can require people to buy insurance under its constitutional power to regulate the interstate health-care market.
During yesterday's opening session, several justices suggested they will reject an argument that they can't consider the case until the penalty is imposed in 2015.
Today, justices may signal whether they're willing to overturn the insurance requirement or other parts of the law, which would extend coverage to 32 million people and revamp an industry that accounts for 18 percent of the U.S. economy.
The last time the court rejected a measure with such sweeping impact was when it voided parts of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the package of economic programs in the 1930s passed in response to the Great Depression.
If the court throws out Obama's insurance mandate, that "would constitute the most significant federalism ruling since the 1930s," said Daniel Conkle, a constitutional law professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law in Bloomington.
Campaign Issue
The justices probably will issue a ruling by late June, less than five months before the election.
Obama's Republican challengers all oppose the measure and say they want to undo it. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum appeared outside the court yesterday and attacked Mitt Romney, who signed a similar state law when he was governor of Massachusetts. Romney is the "worst person" to debate the health law with Obama, Santorum said.
Americans for Prosperity, a Tea Party-affiliated group opposed to the law, plans a rally near the court today. Protests in Washington on both sides began during the weekend.
Yesterday's opening arguments were on a question that could derail the case: whether the penalty for failing to get insurance amounts to a tax. An 1867 law blocks lawsuits over taxes that haven't been imposed.