LEAD: US Supreme Court to hear challenge to Obama health care law

Nov 14, 2011, 16:53 GMT

Washington - The US Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a challenge to President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul law, which has faced a series of legal suits since being passed last year.

The court said it would hear three separate challenges - on appeals from the federal government, a group of 26 states and a business group - to the law during five and half hours of oral arguments early next year.

Legal challenges to the health care mandate have largely centred around the mandate that requires citizens to purchase health insurance and state governments have argued the measure violates their rights to regulate the industry.

The Supreme Court will decide whether Congress overstepped its bounds in passing the law, whether the rest of the law can stand without the insurance requirement and whether the courts can rule on parts of the law before it has been fully enacted.

A US appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia found earlier this year in a case brought by justice officials in 26 states that parts of the law were unconstitutional, but other courts ruling in separate challenges to the law have disagreed.

The White House welcomed the Supreme Court's acceptance of the case and has maintained that the law would hold up to legal scrutiny.

'We know the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and are confident the Supreme Court will agree,' spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said.

Obama's reforms use a combination of the so-called 'individual mandate' and extra subsidies to extend coverage to about 30 million Americans who currently have no insurance. Conservatives slammed the law as a government takeover that violates individual freedoms.

The decision to hear the case was also welcomed by its opponents.

Karen Harned from the National Federation of Independent Business, which is among those whose cases will be heard by the court, called the law 'an unprecedented mandate that infringes upon the individual rights that, truly, all Americans hold so dear.'

'We are confident in the strength of our case and hopeful that we will ultimately prevail. Our nation's job-creators depend on a decision being reached before the harmful effects of this new law become irreversible,' she said.