The provisions of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act take a decade to be come into effect. If Barack Obama
wins a second term, his signature legislation will still not be
fully implemented until four years after he leaves office. But
key provisions are already in place. The reforms are so broad
that they cover measures ranging from the manufacture of generic
drugs to a requirement for restaurants to include calorie counts
on menus. But at the core are provisions intended to make
healthcare more affordable and accessible, including insuring up
to 50 million Americans who are presently without coverage. The
central plank of the legislation is the individual mandate. The
court may decide to strike that down alone and keep the other
provisions, or they may throw out the entire law. Here are the
main provisions. In force now • Within weeks of the law being
passed in 2010, regulations kicked in giving immediate access to
health insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions
who had previ