Health Care, Supreme Court | featured news

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied a request to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday revived a challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms, allowing a Christian college to pursue litigation raising First Amendment objections to a law that the court mostly upheld in June.

So you think the Supreme Court upheld a law that requires most people to buy health insurance? That's only part of it. The measure's hundreds of pages touch on a variety of issues and initiatives that have, for the most part, remained under the public's radar.

White House chief of staff Jack Lew repeatedly said today that the penalty for failure to buy health insurance is not a tax, no matter what people are saying about last week's Supreme Court decision. "This is a penalty," Lew said on CNN's State of the Union, one of three talk show appearances he made today. "It's something that only 1 percent of the people who could afford insurance -- (and) who choose not to get it -- will pay."

The two top Republicans in Congress vowed on Sunday to push ahead with efforts to repeal President Barack Obama's healthcare law despite the Supreme Court upholding it, but the White House said it is time to stop fighting and start implementing it.

Voter support for President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul has increased following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling upholding it, although majorities still oppose it, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed. Among all registered voters, support for the law rose to 48 percent in the online survey conducted after Thursday's ruling, up from 43 percent before the court decision. Opposition slipped to 52 percent from 57 percent.

After surviving the Supreme Court, the legislation must now weather the November election. Even if Democrats prevail, it's likely to be a target in a renewed battle over federal spending.

"For us to have the numbers in the Senate and House and White House isn't going to be as easy as everybody thinks," Rooney said after the high court decision Friday. "It's great to be optimistic, but in an election a lot of things have to go your way. 2012 would have to be like 2010 and then some."

While most tea partiers are angered about the Supreme Court's landmark decision on the nation's health care law, don't expect them to rally around Mitt Romney.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.considers it an insult when he hears it said that he and the justices are playing politics. He has always insisted his sole duty was to decide the law, not to pick the political winners.