As Washington waits on the Supreme Court's Thursday ruling on President Barack Obama's health care law, one of the biggest questions remaining is of what will happen to the $1 billion the federal government has already given states to comply with it. Although 19 states are waiting for guidance from the Supreme Court to implement the law and spend the money creating insurance exchanges, others have said they'll try to implement the law anyway. Private insurers have also said they want to go ahead with some of the law's provisions, whether or not they are struck down. But according to conservative policy analysts, at least, spending the money that came with the law could come with a price for states. "If the whole thing really is unconstitutional, that has to mean that it is illegal to spend the money that way under current law," one analyst at conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute said.
