[learc83]

Exactly. How many times has the supreme court struck down laws because they violated the first amendment? I'm not OK with giving congress unlimited authority to do whatever they please.

Edit:

A quick search shows a total of 1,315 laws have been declared unconstitutional by the supreme court. And countless laws weren't passed in the first place because legislators were aware that they would eventually be overturned.

[mtgx]

That sounds like a lot. Shouldn't US have the Supreme Court verify laws for constitutionality as soon as they pass Congress, like it happens in other countries?

[ProCynic]

First someone who is affected by the law has to challenge it, then the challenge has to make its way through the appeals process until it reaches the level below the supreme court, and then finally the supreme court must decide to take up the case. It's a fairly involved process that only ever gets applied to a small fraction of laws. But the filtering process tends to select laws of questionable constitutionality, so it's fairly inevitable for something like the ACA to end up there. Though it helps to have a powerful interested party pushing a case through the process.