With the frenzy over SCOTUS's consideration of Obama care, we're getting handwringing prophesies of doom for health care reform across the Dem/liberal/left internet and the media yapping classes. They're so widespread among liberal outlets that one begins to wonder what's behind them. Like this from Huffington:
Get ready for the "death spiral."
Harsh questioning by conservative Supreme Court justices Tuesday sparked concern that the health care reform law's individual mandate could be stricken. Without it, health insurance companies and the White House are worried the health care market could blow up come 2014.
"If the mandate goes, people can literally buy coverage on the way to the hospital and then drop it the next day," said Alissa Fox, a senior vice president at the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, a trade group made up of local Blue Cross and Blue Shield health insurance companies.
I think a credible case can be made that the court striking down the individual mandate and leaving the rest alone may be the best possible outcome, not a cause for despair. It would send the problem of fixing the existing law back to Congress where it belongs. There wouldn't be a whole lot of options:
1- Try to repeal the bill. Unlikely to get 60 votes in the Senate, or to escape Obama's veto. Suddenly the disgusting filibuster rule is strangling the Reps. Americans strongly favor the preexisting condition, insurance for the young, health clinics, and other social provisions of the law. If the Reps tried to repeal them, the Dems would have a grand opportunity for a landslide election and subsequent genuine healthcare reform..
2- Find a way to fulfill the obligation to fund a standing law. Most minimal, change the penalty to a tax that's waived for those who buy insurance on their own, and applied to a pool that pays for the uninsured. It's a clumsy and inadequate kludge, but would meet the letter of the SC requirement, probably, and keep the good parts of the law intact.
3- Refuse to fund the bill. Hello constitutional crisis and a political bonanza for the left. Insurancecos threaten to go out of business absent giant government subsidies and mandated patronage. Arguments that private insurance is viable go out the window. Popular fear and anger becomes irresistible, even among Congress's bought-and-paid-for shills.
4- Introduce medicare-for-all, single-payer, or similar legislation, pushed as the only remedy for what the Court and the Right have wrought. Make it clear that this is the only way to keep the preexisting and other wildly popular parts of Obamacare, since private insurance can't/won't cover them. The absence of the individual mandate actually makes the arguments for the legislation much simpler and easier to sell. Finance it with a general tax increase or raise the existing Medicare tax and/or ceiling. This is the optimal solution to a court-caused problem.
The hand wringers keep going on about the current law's unpopularity as proof that their doomsday scenarios will come to pass. The reality is that the opposition to HCR as it stands comes from across the political/ideological spectrum. Nobody likes the mandate. Getting rid of it would boost support from the left side of the line and create strong majorities favoring health care reform.
It will be a fight, but an eminently winnable one without the millstone of the mandate around our necks. The only real question, as always, is whether the Dems/liberals/left will have the guts, energy, motivation, and political savvy to make it happen. That's where the rest of us come in. Now's the time to be getting in shape for a maximum battle once the decision comes down. Let's forget the doomsday whining and get ourselves in shape to grab whatever opportunity the Court hands out.
