But if there's a finding that the not-a-tax is unconstitutional and inseverable, then the entire law - including the preexisting condition coverage obligation - goes away. Correct? And we find ourselves in a period where there are now over 7 million American who have found themselves with a new pre-existing condition that no one in the world had this time a year ago.
If I understand the way this works, courts would have to evaluate how the remaining parts of the statue operate with the junky bit thrown out in the context of how Congress intended the thing to work. Right? The question becomes something like, "Can the ACA operate without the individual mandate?" or such. And it's pretty clear a big part of that is inducing private insurers to cover at-risk consumers by artificially expanding the customer pool by mandating purchase by everyone.
Correct. While it is possible that the law may be found inseverable, as explained in the article, that is an unlikely outcome even without ACB on the Court, based on how the other eight justices have ruled in past cases.
The mandate is already meaningless. Congress repealed the "tax" a few years ago, so there is no penalty whatsoever for failing to buy health insurance. If that hurts insurers, then put that on Congress.
