Supreme Court takes up challenge to health care reform law

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a challenge to President Barack Obama's sweeping health care reform law, the court announced Monday. Oral arguments will likely be held in late February or March, with a ruling by June. A key issue to be considered by the high court's nine justices is whether the "individual mandate" section of the law—requiring nearly all Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties—is an improper exercise of federal authority. Various states have argued that if that linchpin provision is found unconstitutional, the entire law will have to be scrapped.