President Barack Obama's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review last year's landmark health-care law, a move that may lead to a ruling months before the 2012 presidential election.

Calling the issue "a matter of grave national importance," administration lawyers today appealed a lower court ruling that declared part of the law unconstitutional. Earlier in the day, 26 states filed their own appeal, saying the lower court should have gone further and voided the whole statute, which was championed by Obama.

The lower court ruling "is fundamentally flawed and denies Congress the broad deference it is due in enacting laws to address the nation's most pressing economic problems and set tax policy," U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued in the administration's appeal.