For the weightiness of the legal issues and their political impact, the Supreme Court’s decision on the health care reform law will probably rank only behind Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore as the most consequential cases of the last 50 years. For sheer legal and political drama, next week’s unprecedented three days of oral arguments may rival the high theater of Bush v. Gore and will firmly place the Roberts Court at the center of the country’s most contentious domestic political issue apart from abortion (though the echoes of the abortion wars can be clearly heard throughout this case).
All this week our team will be previewing the major legal issues the court is considering in the HCR cases. Our lead reporter, Brian Beutler, has been following every twist and turn of the health care reform battle since 2009, and Sahil Kapur has deep knowledge of the policy questions at stake. If you really want to understand what is happening, I urge you to read their stuff. Sahil kicks things off this week.
