District courts across the country are passing judgement on the Obama administration's health care reform legislation. Yesterday Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled the "individual mandate," that requires everyone to purchase health insurance, was unconstitutional. He says the government overstretched its powers under the Constitution's "Commerce Clause," which allows Congress to regulate individual conduct that affects the economy. Judge Hudson's ruling opens up the debate further, but how will it play in higher courts? 

Virginia judge Henry E. Hudson ruled yesterday that the insurance mandate in the new health care legislation was unconstitutional. But President Obama seems unflappable in the face of the decision. Why? 

President Obama signed his historic health care reform bill into law back in March, and now, six months later, three key provisions in the bill take effect: 

• There will no longer be a lifetime cap on health insurance.
• Parents can now keep their child under their plan until they are 26 years old.
• Insurance companies can no longer refuse coverage for children with pre-existing conditions.

Republicans are implementing different strategies in different states to challenge key parts of health care reform, specifically the part says, if you don't have insurance, you must buy it by 2014. In Missouri, there will be a ballot in the primaries today, and in Virginia, a judge has allowed the state's attorney general to file suit in court. 

A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that medical students who graduate from Historically Black Colleges and Universities are more likely to practice primary care medicine in low-income communities, the exact area of care most needed in the country today. By 2020, six years after health care overhaul kicks in, there will be 35 million newly insured Americans, but a projected shortage of up to 100,000 primary care doctors. HBCUs like Morehouse, Howard and Meharry Medical College – the top ranked schools in the study – may be helping prevent the problem by training students to work in underserved communities upon graduation.

In the course of reporting last week's massive health care overhaul, Todd Zwillich came across a strange detail in the $25 billion legislation. He asks Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham about "black liquor" — a mysterious substance that affects many people in Graham's home state (even though he'd never heard of it).

Health care reform is now the law of the land, and after the months of protracted debate, you'd think there couldn't be any details left to tease out, but our Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, discovered that lawmakers never once mentioned a $25 billion detail in the bill, pertaining to a mysteriously named substance: black liquor. 

Republicans love to accuse President Obama of being "drunk on spending." And when I saw that $25 billion of the recently-passed health care overhaul bill was financed with something called "black liquor," I thought Democrats had finally decided to shed all pretense and live up to the GOP's epithets.

I initally thought (even hoped) that black liquor was some clandestine toxic Tennessee moonshine, or a minority-owned spirits concern facing pay-back for wronging a powerful congressman. No such luck: It turns out black liquor is a merely a dark, burnable byproduct of the pulp-making process, a fuel that paper companies across the South can burn in their factories to cut costs.

It could go down as the defining moment of his presidency. Though he was doubted and abandoned by supporters, President Obama was able to twist arms to pass health care reform, signing the bill into law on Tuesday. Today, he returns to the Iowa, the state where he first rolled out his vision of a health care overhaul as a candidate. What will be the lasting narrative of Obama's time in office, and will health care reform play a role?

• HEALTH CARE TAKEOUT: Health care reform was signed into law yesterday and Democrats were jubilant. Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich details the ceremony, down to the 22 souvenir pens and the vice president's salty language.
• MONEY TAKEOUT: Section 2572 of the recently-passed health care bill requires that chain restaurants post calorie counts on their menus. Louise Story, Wall Street and financial reporter for The New York Times, talks to us about how restaurants and consumers might respond.

UPDATED 7:00 p.m. Arwa Gunja here on the night shift, putting the final touches on tomorrow's show. Takeaway producer Anna Sale is in Haiti all this week, and tomorrow she’ll talk about how local Haitians have been an extending a helping hand to those in need. She’s profiling a young Haitian man who has been regularly visiting a hospital to help an orphaned toddler  (whom he had never met before) badly injured after the earthquake.

We’ll also check in with Andrea Bernstein, the director of The Takeaway’s Transportation Nation project. She spoke with Ronald Simms, the deputy of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It may come as a surprise that only a third of America’s neighborhoods are actually affordable when you factor in the cost of transportation.

And we’re still following the latest with Google’s pull out of mainland China. Tomorrow we’re asking listeners what is more important in THEIR lives: Google or China? If you look around your house, how many products are made in China? Which could you more easily give up? Leave a comment below or call in: 877-8-MY-TAKE (877-869-8253)

The passage of the health care reform bill is controversial for many reasons, but a main argument among critics is that it will cost more money than it will save. If signed into law as expected, the legislation would cost about $938 billion dollars. But, the Congressional Budget Office has said the bill will reduce federal deficits by an estimated $138 billion dollars in the next decade. We hear from one critic, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and former economic advisor for Sen. John McCain when he was the Republican presidential candidate.

• CONGRESS TAKEOUT: Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich answers listeners' questions on how the health care reform will affect them.
• SPORTS TAKEOUT:  The NCAA women's basketball tournament heads to round two with the favorite (U-Conn) still in the lead; but, is an upset on the way? We turn to Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin.

Google closed its operations in China after months of disputes over censorship and cyber security. Does this mean defeat for the Internet giant? We talk with Adam Segal, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in Chinese economic innovation. He thinks that Google might not have lost as much as you might think.

A major part of the health care legislation that President Obama is expected to sign into law today focuses on cutting the skyrocketing costs of medical care. People with chronic diseases put a particular burden on medical services, and policy analysts say that getting better access to preventative care can drive down health care costs.

UPDATED 6:30 p.m.

Arwa Gunja here on the night shift.

Not much has changed for tomorrow’s show.  We learned this afternoon that Google has decided to shut down its operation in China. The company made this decision after it learned Gmail accounts were being hacked by the Chinese and after months of talks over China’s censorship rules. Internet users in China will now be redirected to the Hong Kong version of the search engine. Who wins and who loses in this deal? China is the largest and fastest-growing internet market, but Google is the most popular search engine. And what does this mean for China’s role as an emerging powerhouse in the global market?

We also take a look at disabled employees in the workforce. The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is at 14 percent, compared to 10 percent in the general population. We’ll ask what can be done to narrow that gap.

When the House of Representatives narrowly voted to approve a Senate-passed health care bill, 32 million Americans came closer to receiving medical coverage; but, what does this mean for the thousands of American hospitals tasked with treating them?

Last night the House of Representatives voted on an historic national health insurance reform bill. A hundred years in the making, this is going to have deep and lasting effects on every man, woman and child in America.

Last night the House voted, 219-212, to approve the Senate's version of health care reform, clearing the way for legislation to proceed to the president's desk. The House also approved a set of "fixes" to the Senate bill; Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has assured the House leadership that more than 51 Senators will pass the same fixes using the Senate's reconciliation rules.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) has served in the House of Representatives for over 50 years.  At the beginning of every session of Congress, Dingell has introduced the same national health care reform bill: the same bill that his father, also a Representative from from Michigan's 15th district, started introducing in 1943. Like most Democrats on the Hill today, Dingell says he's heartened by the current state of health care reform ... though he'll readily admit that the current compromise bill is far from perfect.