State hospital groups urge Supreme Court to review ACA case this term

Thirty-three state hospital associations late yesterday filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to review this term an appeals court decision that held the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate unconstitutional.  
“A specter of uncertainty now looms over health care delivery and financing in this country,” the brief states. Unless the court quickly resolves whether the individual mandate is constitutional and severable from the rest of the law, “the valuable reforms designed to improve health care and lower cost will hang in limbo for several years. A delayed resolution may force hospitals to postpone or abandon the adoption of innovative models, such as Accountable Care Organizations, that are designed to improve health care and lower costs. Moreover, hospitals will almost certainly encounter increased difficulty raising money to finance the investments necessary to adopt these changes. … Prompt and final resolution of these questions is necessary to settle how hospitals and health systems will continue to deliver care.”
Twenty states and the District of Columbia have petitioned the Supreme Court to quickly review the appeals court decision, which sent the case back to the district court in Texas for the judge to take a “careful, granular approach” to determining which of the law's provisions could survive without the mandate. 
Earlier yesterday, the AHA — joined by the Federation of American Hospitals, Catholic Health Association of the United States, Association of American Medical Colleges, and America’s Essential Hospitals — also filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to review the decision this term. 
For more on the appeals court decision, see the AHA’s recent statement.