Will SCOTUS Actually Rule on The Individual Mandate This Year?

I found this interesting, and wonder to the likelyhood of it: Legal Experts See a Close Win for Health-Reform Law - Yahoo! News

The whole article is interesting and presents both sides of the debate fairly well to my mind, but this is what caught my eye:

But, some of the experts believe there's also a good chance the Supreme Court will punt on the issue, declaring that the time isn't right for judicial review of the Affordable Care Act.
"I think it's interesting they're going to spend a lot of time -- a third of oral arguments -- on whether the case is 'ripe' for judicial review," said Drexel's Field. "That could be a signal from the court that they're spending that much time on that part of the argument."

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The reason why: the individual mandate, which takes effect in 2014, is a form of tax, and federal law doesn't allow a legal challenge to a tax that has yet to be collected.
"You can't challenge a tax until after you've paid it, and then you can sue for a refund," Larsen said, noting that this legal argument has come up in some lower court rulings on the law.

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Do you think SCOTUS will pass on ruling on the mandate in an election year and put it off until after it is in effect?

I'm with you in thinking they'll delay.

1. They don't want to be seen as taking such a direct role in politics. By delaying they'll lessen their impact on the election process.

2. It will be looked at as a tax, which means it'll have to go into affect for the Court to rule.

Only if they take the chicken chit route. Which honestly wouldn't surprise me. SCOTUS has a long history of punting.

I don't know. I was listening to Tom Sullivan today as he outlined the three different issues that will be argued before SCOTUS next Mon, Tues and Weds. I wish I could succinctly list those issues, but much legalese was spoken and it's not my native tongue. Ordinarily, I wouldn't think SCOTUS would want to rule on a political football in a presidential election year... except that I no longer hold the naive views from my youth that the Judicial branch is independent and non-partisian.

I think the SCOTUS will punt on the individual mandate for now but ultimately uphold that it is constitutional.

The SCOTUS has long upheld provisions of the Anti-Injunction Act which prohibits the judiciary from ruling in favor of any person or organization on the merits of unfair taxation until such a tax (or tax penalty) has been legally assessed. Since the individual mandate has yet to take affect, no one has been harmed financially from the PPACA since the IRS has not "penalized" anyone for their failure to comply with the law. Until that happens, no individual or organization has legal standing.

As to the PPACA itself, there's alot to argue about both for and against its constitutionality but I believe it also will be ruled constitutional.

1) The SCOTUS ruled long ago that if Congress wanted to regulate the health care industry as part of interstate commerce, all it had to do was establish a law and set the enactment date far enough into the future so that all facets of the law could be fully implemented.

2) The SCOTUS also stated that under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the states could be used as "test labs" for carrying out certain laws, i.e., health care reform, towhich the state of Massatuchettes became with "RomneyCare". And while the PPACA does not share every health care reform provision as outlined in RomneyCare, there are some simularities the least of which are the individual mandate and the health insurance exchanges.

If the SCOTUS does its due diligence, the PPACA, specifically the individual mandate, will eventually be ruled constitutional. That ruling may be delayed until 2015, but eventually IMO the law will be upheld.