NU Online News Service, Dec. 20, 3:01 p.m. EST

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the healthcare reform law and other issues pertaining to it for three days starting March 26.

Analysts and lawyers do not expect a decision in the case until late June.

The hearings will open March 26 with a one-hour debate on the threshold issues of whether a federal law called the Anti-Injunction Act makes challenges to the mandate premature until 2015.

George Patton Jr., an appellate lawyer with Bose McKinney & Evans LLP in Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis, explains that anti-injunction deals with whether the Court must wait until a tax is imposed on those who don't want to buy individual insurance, and then a lawsuit filed, before it can act on the case. This means that a decision on the constitutionality of the individual mandate may have to be delayed until 2015.

The next day, according to a schedule released by the High Court Monday, the judges will hear two hours of argument on the central issue of the constitutionality of mandating that citizens buy health insurance or pay a penalty. The provision is often called the individual mandate; the announcement called it the minimum coverage provision.

On March 28, the court will hear arguments on two other issues related to the law.

It will first consider for 90 minutes whether the individual mandate may be severed from the balance of the statute. That is what the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit held when it struck down the provision.

The court will then hear an hour of argument as to whether Congress can constitutionally require that states expand their Medicaid services, as mandated by the law.

Challengers, including 26 states, contend that Congress cannot use its interstate commerce powers to regulate citizens who choose not to participate in the health-insurance market.

The core constitutional issue revolves around the Commerce Clause.