Insurance Mandate Faces Tough Questions

“With the fate of President Obama’s health care law hanging in the balance at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a lawyer for the administration faced a barrage of skeptical questions from four of the court’s more conservative justices,” the New York Times reports.

Wall Street Journal: “The most worrisome remarks for the plaintiffs–the side arguing against the Obama health law–came from Justice Kennedy, who wavered over the claim that when it came to health care, a bright line could be drawn between those engaged in commerce by buying insurance and whose wholly outside the market by declining to do so.”

SCOTUSblog: “If Justice Anthony M. Kennedy can locate a limiting principle in the federal government’s defense of the new individual health insurance mandate, or can think of one on his own, the mandate may well survive. If he does, he may take Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and a majority along with him. But if he does not, the mandate is gone.”