The National Law Journal asked practitioners who attended the health care arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court last week to provide instant commentaries. These are collected at www.nlj.com/healthcare. Below are selected excerpts from the commentaries.

ANTI-INJUNCTION ACT

For all the excitement outside the Supreme Court, the courtroom was surprisingly subdued, as the justices considered the somewhat dry issue of the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA). Indeed, a few of the justices appeared dangerously close to nodding off. That said, it appeared from the questions that the justices are not eager to delay ruling on the merits of the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Many of the justices questioned whether the AIA is, in fact, jurisdictional, and if they could accept the government’s position that the Anti-Injunction Act does not prevent a decision on the merits at this point. The bottom line is that it looks very likely that the Court will not delay a ruling on the constitutionality of the mandate until the provision goes into effect in 2014. For the American people, and the state leaders who are already working to implement the Affordable Care Act in the states, this is good news. — Elizabeth Wydra, chief counsel, Constitutional Accountability Center On an argument day that can best be described as the calm before the storm, it quickly became clear that the Supreme Court would reach the constitutional issues everyone cares about. That is, regardless of how the justices resolve the hypertechnical issue of whether the Anti-Injunction Act is “jurisdictional,” this law — which prevents people from challenging taxes before they’re assessed or collected — does not apply to the Obamacare litigation. There were also hints that the Court was skeptical of the government’s backup merits argument that the individual mandate was justified under the Constitution’s taxing power. Perhaps the only surprising aspect of today’s hearing was how “cold” the bench was; it’s rare for the justices to allow advocates to speak at length without interruption, but that’s what they generally did today. That’s yet another indication that the Court will get past the AIA appetizer to the constitutional entree. — Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review