Most legal scholars now believe that the Supreme Court will likely strike down at least part of Obamacare.
It seems that Obama’s attempts to compromise with conservatives is about to backfire with the judicial branch in even worse ways than it has with the legislative.
But Conservatives should be careful what they wish for. If they truly intend to reform healthcare by avoiding more socialized solutions like single-payer, this may have been their best chance.
Take away the mandate, and this is what is left of Obamacare:
1) New rules that forbid insurance companies from refusing coverage or raising the rates for those with “pre-existing condition”
2) Billions in subsidies for those who cannot afford to purchase insurance on their own.
3) An expansion of Medicaid eligibility to about 18 million more poor people.
Without the mandate, the new rules will cause the price of insurance to skyrocket; There will be less healthy people subsidizing more sick people. Employers will likely drop coverage, choosing instead, the comparatively small penalty. Employees , then will be forced into the healthcare exchanges, whose cost will have also gone up due to the mandate being stripped out of the equation. Those who cannot afford to purchase will receive subsidies (READ TAXES), now much larger than they would have been with the mandate.
The increased cost of premiums will mean that more people who are eligible for medicaid will take advantage of that eligibility, because the alternatives are too cost-prohibitive.
Employers dropping coverage + skyrocketing premiums = the perfect storm for the growth of medicaid, bringing us once step closer to the system conservatives abhor the most.
This is cutting off the nose to spite’s ones face