Supreme Court Ruling On Affordable Care Act Could Come As Early As Today.

The Christian Science Monitor (6/18, Feldmann) reports, "The political world is on pins and needles, waiting for the Supreme Court to hand down its ruling on President Obama's sweeping reform of the health-insurance system. A decision could come as early as Monday. ... Publicly, Mr. Obama and his surrogates express confidence that the court will uphold the Affordable Care Act. Implementation is proceeding on schedule, they say. Still, at the White House correspondents' dinner in April, the president joked: 'In my first term, we passed healthcare reform. In my second term, I guess I'll pass it again.'"

David Plouffe said on ABC's This Week (6/17, Stephanopoulos), "We do believe it's constitutional, and we hope and expect that's the decision the court will render. I'm not going to get into any contingencies. We obviously will be prepared for whatever decision the court renders. I do think that it's important to focus on what the healthcare law is already doing. We just saw a report this week that now 5.5 million people between the ages of 18 and 26 are able to stay on their parents' plan, millions of seniors saving thousands of dollars in prescription drugs, free preventive care, free mammography for folks. So this is making a big difference."

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) said on CNN's State Of The Union (6/17, Crowley), "I believe that this is unconstitutional and I believe there is going to be a stinging rebuke of this president's centerpiece legislation when the Supreme Court rules later this month, and they should rule that this is unconstitutional. If not, the Republicans want to repeal everything that is left standing. ... The whole goal of healthcare reform was to get patients to get the care that they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. This healthcare law did nothing to deal with the fundamental problem, which is the cost of care."

Ruling Could Impact Healthcare Reforms Made Independent Of ACA. The Washington Post (6/18, Rau) reports that "changes that hospitals, doctors and insurers had been moving toward even before" the Affordable Care Act could be "halted" or "hobbled" if the Supreme Court rules parts of the law unconstitutional. The changes "include increasing the role of primary care, especially for low-income patients; forcing hospitals and doctors to work together closely; and reducing pay to hospitals if they don't meet patients' expectations or outcome benchmarks set by the government."

Ruling Could Also Eliminate "Lucrative Pool Of Patients." The Washington Times (6/18, Cunningham) says "if the justices uphold the part of the Affordable Care Act requiring insurers to cover patients with pre-existing conditions, insurance companies would suffer a blow, but doctors, hospitals and drugmakers would find themselves with more insured, high-need patients." But if the reforms are struck down, "healthcare providers could lose out on a lucrative pool of patients they had been counting on under the original deal."

USA Today (6/16, Mullaney) reported, "From Wall Street, the decision's potential impact on health care - and the health care business - looks huge. Barclays Capital analyst Joshua Raskin says some health insurance stocks might drop 30% if the court throws out the entire law." The piece notes that "Medical inflation, while moderating, continues to outpace general inflation, driving fiscal problems for states and for Washington. At the same time, health care remains a tough business: Bond-rating agency Moody's says non-profit hospitals, which control most of the US market, have their lowest revenue growth in 50 years."

The Fort Myers (FL) News-Press (6/16, King) reports on the decision's impact in Florida. The piece notes, "A ruling that upholds the entire law might kick-start efforts to set up health exchanges for consumers, identify as many as 2 million uninsured Floridians who will be newly eligible for Medicaid and dish out millions in insurance rebates to individuals and businesses." Meanwhile, "A ruling that declares the entire law unconstitutional could trigger the removal of young adults from their parents' health insurance policies, the dismantling of a special health insurance pool set up for several thousand Floridians who couldn't get insurance elsewhere and an end to discounts in prescription drug costs for seniors."