The Court chose to consider four questions that could determine whether the law stands:

1. Is the consequence for not complying with the individual mandate a tax or penalty? If a tax, the Court cannot rule on the case until it is paid — in 2015.

2. Is the individual mandate unconstitutional? Can individuals be required to purchase health insurance or face fines for noncompliance?

3. If the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional, is it severable from the rest of the law? Or does the entire law fall? Maybe it's just the individual mandate that falls, or the mandate plus guaranteed issue and community rating? That would force healthy individuals to subsidize the health-care costs of higher-risk consumers. Similarly, guaranteed issue world require insurers to approve coverage for all individuals.

4. Is the expansion of Medicaid, which would permit coverage for everyone with incomes of less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level, unconstitutional? If so, can it be stricken?

Severability would seriously affect restaurants. The reason: the Court chose not to directly consider the constitutionality of the employer mandate. For the employer mandate to fall, either the individual mandate or Medicaid expansion must be found unconstitutional and bring the rest of the law down with it.

This is the first in a series of blog posts on the healthcare law and the restaurant industry. The articles are written by Michelle Reinke Neblett, the National Restaurant Association's director of labor and workforce policy.For more information on the health care law, go to our Health Care Knowledge Center.