ObamaCare: What Now?

The three days of argument on the constitutionality of "ObamaCare" are over. So what happens now?

On Friday, the Supreme Court justices will hold a weekly conference. These are done behind closed doors and the meeting is not recorded for public release. By the end of the conference, they will have cast tentative votes on all of the issues that were presented during the arguments - namely, the individual mandate, what parts of the law (if any) can still stand if the mandate is void and the expansion of the Medicaid program.

Based on how the votes fall, different justices will be assigned to write the majority opinion (it's possible there might be several majority opinions because there are several different items up for debate). After these opinions are drafted, they'll be circulated among the justices. If any proposed opinion gets five votes, it becomes the majority opinion of the court.

Since the Supreme Court still has more than 30 other cases to issue rulings on this term, it's likely that ObamaCare will be one of the last. The court's 2011-2012 term ends on June 25 and all rulings will be announced by then.

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