Obama Confident Supreme Court Will Defend Health Care Law

Days after a federal appeals panel deemed the individual insurance mandate in Obama’s health care law unconstitutional, President Obama pushed back today and declared his confidence that the Supreme Court would uphold it, so long as they adhere to existing precedents and laws.

The President, who is on a three-day bus tour throughout the Midwest, made his comments on his first stop at a town hall meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, less than an hour south of the Twin Cities, the AP reports.

Read here for previous Law Blog coverage here about last Friday’s circuit split on the health care law. The conflicting opinions of two U.S. appeals courts virtually guarantees that the nation’s highest court will take up the issue of whether the health care overhaul is constitutional.

During the town hall meeting, Obama contended that the central provision of his health care law – which requires nearly all Americans to carry health insurance – is constitutional because, without it, taxpayers would have to pay the costs of emergency care when the uninsured require medical treatment, according to USA Today.

Obama also pointed out that Republican presidential candidate and frontrunner Mitt Romney supported a similar individual mandate for health insurance during his time as Massachusetts governor.

“This used to be a Republican idea,” he said.

Despite the President’s confidence on the matter, Northwestern University law professor Stephen Presser told Legal Newsline that Obama would most likely try and stall a Supreme Court ruling on the issue until after the 2012 election.  The possibility of the high court’s rejection of his health care law could significantly damage Obama’s re-election prospects, Presser added.

But Santa Clara University law professor Bradley Joondeph told the Law Blog last week that he expects a Supreme Court ruling could come as early as April or May of next year.

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