This first issue before the justices is whether an obscure 1867 tax law prohibits lawsuits, like the ones challenging the health care law, from going forward until someone actually pays the insurance tax penalty -- the penalty for not buying health insurance, as required under the law. 

It's a question over whether the high-profile lawsuits can proceed now or will have to wait until early 2015 when the IRS collects its first payments from uninsured taxpayers. In other words, will the justices -- playing the role of referees -- call off this Super Bowl of legal cases on a technicality? 

Though unlikely, it is possible that the Court could issue a ruling saying the Reconstruction-era Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) forecloses action on the other health care cases. That was the conclusion reached by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a pair of cases started by Virginia lawmakers and Liberty University challenging the law.