SCOTUS Adds 30 Minutes for Anti-Injunction Act Oral Argument
02/21/12
By Hadley Heath
Today the Supreme Court announced that it will bump the time allotment for oral arguments on the Anti-Injunction Act issue from 60 to 90 minutes. This means the total time for oral arguments in the ObamaCare lawsuit will be six hours.
Here's the latest breakdown:
• Anti-Injunction Act: 90 minutes
• Individual mandate: 120 minutes
• Severability: 90 minutes
• Medicaid: 60 minutes
The Anti-Injunction Act issue is under consideration because of a ruling in Liberty v. Geithner that essentially deemed the individual mandate a Constitutional exercise of Congress's taxing power.
In my view, the worst possible outcome of this Supreme Court battle is that the Court call the mandate a tax. Everyone recognizes that it is NOT a tax (including the acting White House budget director), but a ruling to the contrary would delay a ruling on the health care law until as late as 2016.
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