The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Constitutionality of the “individual mandate” in Obamacare. This is the part of the provision that forces people to take responsibility for their health care coverage and doesn’t allow them to just have everyone else foot the bill. It is, of course, very unpopular.
My feeling is that it is indeed Constitutional. The commerce cause gives Congress wide latitude in these sorts of things, and this seems to be entirely within their purview. I expect that there will be a 6 – 3 ruling upholding this (all the “liberal” justices with Roberts and Kennedy joining in).
But I might be wrong. I could see them deciding that the mandate is not Constitutional, which everyone had best hope doesn’t happen. If it does, well, things could get very ugly, because then people who get sick can wait until right before they go to the hospital to buy insurance. Once they’re healthy, they can drop it again.
I said before that conservatives should hope that the court upholds it, and I still believe that. It’s a very Republican kind of concept (and, indeed, it’s based largely off of Romneycare). Plus, hey, if you guys break it, you buy it. You really don’t want to have to try and fix this problem. Trust me.
