Seeking clarity on health care

President Barack Obama's request that the U.S. Supreme Court decide, sooner rather than later, whether his signature health care law is constitutional is a necessary move in the nation's best interest.

It opens the door for a court decision in the thick of the presidential campaign before next November's election. That's politically risky for Obama and an unpredictable wild card for the eventual Republican nominee. But with almost 50 million people uninsured, the cost of coverage doubling each decade and soaring health care costs driving federal deficits, the country needs a definitive decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

The alternative is continuing the paralyzing fight over whether the individual mandate at the heart of the law oversteps the government's constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce. The last thing the public needs is more partisan gridlock. A high court ruling should allow the nation either to get on with implementing the law, or to get busy fashioning another approach to the problems of expanding coverage and keeping health care affordable.

The constitutional battle lines have been drawn since a Democratic Congress enacted the law in March 2010. Opponents, including 26 states that filed suit, say the government can't force people to buy health insurance. The administration's view is that an individual decision not to buy insurance affects interstate commerce because it forces the rest of us, wherever we live, to pay for care when the uninsured get sick or injured.

Circumstances that usually lead to a Supreme Court review are now in place. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta has found this act of Congress unconstitutional, while two other appeals courts have ruled it constitutional, a conflict that needs to be resolved. And all the parties in the case heard in Atlanta -- where the mandate was invalidated but other provisions of the law were upheld -- have now asked the justices to settle the dispute.

That doesn't necessarily mean the Supreme Court will hear the case in the term that begins Monday. It has great flexibility on what cases it accepts. It could decide the issue isn't ripe for decision until 2014, when the individual mandate goes into effect. And even if the court takes the case, there's no guarantee it wouldn't decide narrowly on some peripheral legal issue and leave the core question of the mandate unresolved.

Anything short of a clear, definitive ruling ending the constitutional battle over the mandate would be a discouraging dodge.

No matter what the court does, Republicans will remain passionately devoted to repealing what they deride as "Obamacare" and Democrats will remain committed to preserving the controversial law. At bottom, the battle is just one of many fronts in the larger war over the proper role of government, a fight as old as the nation itself. But it has reached a fever pitch lately, rendering Washington ineffectual in the face of epic economic woes. The next presidential election is the best hope for charting a productive way forward. It would help if the Supreme Court shed some timely light on the constitutionality of health reform.