Supreme Court to hear health act challenge

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it expects to hear arguments next March in a challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a key piece of President Barack Obama's agenda.

The decision to hear arguments at that time allows plenty of time for a decision in late June, about four months before Election Day. This could set up an election-year showdown over the White House's main domestic policy achievement.

The justices announced they will hear more than five hours of arguments, an extraordinarily long session, on the constitutionality of a provision at the heart of the law and other related questions about the act. The central provision in question is the requirement that individuals buy health insurance starting in 2014 or pay a penalty.

A White House spokesman said, "We are pleased that the court has agreed to hear this case."

"We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree," communications direct Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.

Republicans have called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional since before Obama signed it into law in March 2010. But only one of the four federal appeals courts that have considered the health care overhaul has struck down even a part of the law.

The federal appeals court in Atlanta said Congress exceeded its power under the Constitution when it adopted the mandate. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the entire law, as did appellate judges in Washington, D.C.

In addition to deciding whether the law's central mandate is constitutional, the justices will also determine whether the rest of the law can take effect even if that central mandate is held unconstitutional.

The court also will look at the law's expansion of the joint federal-state Medicaid program that provides health care to poorer Americans. The states say the law goes too far in coercing them into participating by threatening a cutoff of federal money.