Tagged: Affordable Care Act

The U.S. Supreme Court gets to the heart of the health care arguments Tuesday. Almost exactly two years after Congress passed the Obama health care overhaul, the justices are hearing legal arguments testing the constitutionality of the so-called health care mandate — so-called because those words actually do not appear in the law.

As U.S. Supreme Court justices opened their historic three-day hearing of arguments on President Obama's health care plan, hundreds of protesters from across the country flocked outside the court singing, chanting and arguing with one another.

Supporters and opponents of the law engaged in a sing-song call-and-response debate just in front of the court's towering marble steps.

"We love Obamacare!" shouted supporters.

"No, we don't!" responded members of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the most vocal and disapproving groups of the law present at the court Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday opened three days of oral arguments over the constitutionality of the insurance requirement embedded in President Obama's landmark health care law with a simple question and an obscure 1867 law.

The question: Does the court even have the right to hear the health care challenge, given that the Anti-Injunction Act prevents federal courts from taking cases where taxpayers are trying to prevent the government from "assessing or collecting" taxes?

No circus would be complete without a few animals.

So wouldn't you know the big crowd outside the U.S. Supreme Court today included a cat on a leash and an adorable chihuahua mix with health insurance.

Kaiser Health News' Jessica Marcy snapped the shot of the cat, stretched out on the steps leading to the courthouse, as she was rushing to cover the arrival of Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

The Supreme Court on Monday heard the first of three days of oral arguments on the fate of President Obama's health care law. A transcript of Monday's arguments, as prepared by the court, follows.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: We will hear argument this morning in Case Number 11-398, Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida.

Mr. Long.

ORAL ARGUMENT OF ROBERT A. LONG ON BEHALF OF THE COURT-APPOINTED AMICUS CURIAE MR. LONG: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: