The notable exception remains the individual mandate [the requirement that all adults purchase health insurance], "which remains deeply unpopular," Taylor said.
In February 2011, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that savings from the Affordable Care Act would cut the federal deficit by $210 billion during the next decade.
The law's supporters argue that without the requirement that people have insurance coverage while they're healthy, there won't be enough money in the risk pool to pay to take care of them when the need for health care eventually -- and inevitably -- arises.
"If people don't feel like paying, then get sick and go to the emergency room or the hospital, those people's costs will be added on to our insurance bills as they are today, which makes it much more expensive," said John Rother, president of the National Coalition on Health Care, which works to achieve reform of the U.S. health-care system.
But opponents say that the cost-cutting provisions probably won't work.
Devon Herrick, a health economist at the free-market National Center for Policy Analysis, said the law set up a "slippery slope" that will increase costs, not lower them.
"If Congress and company have the legal authority to decide the minimum coverage you must have, all manner of lobbyists and special interests and providers for specific diseases will descend on Washington and state capitals, as they always have, to make sure that their respective services are covered by that mandate," Herrick said.
In the two years since its passage, the Affordable Care Act has been the target of multiple lawsuits, with a handful of cases working their way through the federal appellate court system before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in March.
More information
The Kaiser Family Foundation has a primer on the Supreme Court's review of the health-care reform law.
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