High Court may decide healthcare law soon

The U.S. Supreme Court will likely decide shortly before the presidential election if U.S. healthcare reform is constitutional, the administration indicated. The Justice Department said Monday night it would forgo a full review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta after a divided three-judge panel of the court struck down the so-called individual mandate last month, considered the centerpiece of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The panel ruled Congress exceeded its powers to regulate commerce when it required people to buy health insurance. But the court held that while that provision was unconstitutional, the rest of the wide-ranging law could stand. The Justice Department declined further comment Monday night, but the logical next step would be for the Obama administration to appeal directly to the Supreme Court and ask the justices to schedule the case to be heard and decided during the term that begins next week and ends in June, the Los Angeles Times reported. If the court follows that schedule, the justices would likely hand down a ruling on Obama's signature legislation in the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign. The administration has until mid-November to file an appeal with the high court. On Sept. 9, a federal appellate court in Richmond, Va., threw out a pair of cases challenging the Affordable Care Act's constitutionality, ruling the plaintiffs had no legal standing to sue. In the process, two of the three judges on the panel said they would have upheld the law if they had been able to rule on the substance of the cases.