OBAMACARE AND SCOTUS

Will the constitutionality of Obamacare be a resolved issue by the time voters head to the polls in 2012? WSJ:

The Supreme Court, it appears, likely will consider the constitutionality of the federal health-care overhaul.

That is the upshot of an announcement today from the Justice Department that it will not ask the 11th Circuit to reconsider its August ruling that the law's requirement that individuals carry health insurance or pay a penalty is unconstitutional, WSJ reports.

By not seeking an 11^thCircuit review, the DOJ has increased the chances that the Supreme Court will consider the health-care law during this coming term and issue a ruling before the 2012 presidential election.

Not just before the election, but probably just in time to provide a big fight right before the conventions: "The constitutionality of the 2010 health-care law will likely be determined by the Supreme Court this term, meaning the decision could come next summer in the thick of the 2012 presidential campaign."

Supreme Court justices are always a brewing issue in a presidential year, but if the high court tosses Obamacare out as unconstitutional, I could see Obama acting as if his actual opponent on the ballot is named "Scalia Thomas Alito Roberts Kennedy."

The Washington Post's Eva Rodriguez didn't see this coming:

I'm shocked -- truly. Earlier this year, the Atlanta-based federal appeals court struck down the individual mandate -- the cornerstone of Obama's health-care plan. The Justice Department had until Monday to ask the full court to reconsider that decision. I would have bet good money that it would do so to drag out the litigation at the appellate level for at least several more months. Why? The longer the case stayed at the appeals court, the less likely it would be to reach the generally conservative (read: unsympathetic) high court ahead of next year's presidential election.

Her colleague Steven Stromberg walks us through the Obama strategy:

If the goal is preservation of the policy at all costs, Justice's decision has at least one attraction. Pretend Justice had asked the 11th Circuit to reconsider and the appeals court took its time, pushing Supreme Court review into 2013. If Obama then lost his reelection bid, it could have fallen to new a new Justice Department to defend the statute -- one led by an attorney general appointed by a GOP president committed to unraveling the health-care law in every way he or she knows how. That hypothetical Republican administration could have decided to do what the Obama Justice Department did with the Defense of Marriage Act -- offer no defense of the law at all.

So, Obama partisans, you must consider at least two, possibly mixed results -- a politically risky legal battle on the individual mandate in the middle of a presidential campaign, and added insurance that Obama administration lawyers will see the case through its final appeal. Your satisfaction depends on how much you care about the health-care law, how you think the Supreme Court will rule -- and how likely you think Obama's reelection is.