There have been some interesting discussions about the ACA lawsuit during this entire time and many good points on all sides have been made. Some people seem to believe that we will be making progress on the public option if the mandate is overturned. I would love it if this were the case. Now I'm no expert on the law--in fact I'm probably the complete opposite, where my job is to crunch numbers all the livelong day--but I have been following the lawsuit for a while and common sense tells me that's not going to happen. In fact, I see the opposite happening, where overturning the individual mandate would be serious blow to any possibility of a PO. If any lawyers would care to chime in with their expertise that would be appreciated as well.
The rogue Republican Attorneys General are arguing that the government has no right to mandate people to have health insurance.
I once believed that if we had passed the PO, we wouldn't be in this mess. But after reading more about the lawsuits, I have begin thinking we would still be in the same position no matter what.
They are arguing that the mandate is unconstitutional, period, that government has no right to mandate purchase of goods or services. Neither the plaintiffs of the multi-state lawsuit, nor the judge who ruled against the mandate, have cited lack of a public option as the reason they believe the mandate is unconstitutional.
Example: If the government mandates that everyone must buy $1000 worth of broccoli per year, does it really matter to the Republicans if they have the option to buy government broccoli instead of grocery store broccoli? It's the essence of the mandate they have a problem with, not whether a public option is available. They are arguing that citizens should have the right not to participate in ANY health insurance program.
But the problem is we would still need the individual mandate even if we had a public option. Otherwise, people would only buy into the PO when they're sick, and the program would implode and not be self-sustaining. If the PO cannot self-sustain, the PO will be viewed as welfare. If the PO is viewed as welfare, no one will touch it with a ten foot pole.
Thus, if the individual mandate is declared unconstitutional, it seems the PO will be out the door too, because the PO needs the mandate. Then it will have to be single payer, Medicare style tax on everybody or nothing, to comply with the SCOTUS interpretation of the law.