A raft of health charities and patient-advocacy groups have filed briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the new health-care overhaul law, which has been challenged as unconstitutional for requiring most Americans to buy health insurance or face a penalty.

The groups told the court, which is set to hear oral arguments on the case in March, that the health-insurance provision, known as the “individual mandate,” is critical to making the new law work effectively.

“Without that requirement, healthy people tend to avoid buying insurance until they need it, leaving insurance plans to cover a sicker population and driving up costs for everyone in the health care system,” said the American Cancer Society, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association, which filed a “friend of the court” brief last week.

They…

Read More