[Hostage]

I think the Supreme Court will strike down the individual mandate but they will let the tax provisions stand because they are authorized under the 16th Amendment. It really is the 1913 16th Amendment that is killing our liberty here.

The issue of severability is a nonstarter because already in the Appeals court they are saying severability is implicitly understood, in other words Congress meant to do it. It’s possible they could make Congress vote on it again and that would be the death of Obamacare. So severability is a big issue but I am skeptical the SCOTUS would not give Obama a chance to revise its intent on severability as saying it was implicit or was an oversight.

But letting the tax provisions stand in Obamacare means that our US Govt can tax expensive health plans and incomes to pay for health plans of uninsured or underinsured. In other words it will be a huge expansion of State Medicaid.

So the 16th Amendment has screwed us.

The best I see is that people wake up and become aware that SCOTUS upholds Obamacare as a constitutional tax under authority of the 16th Amendment AND they take action and start to debate whether we need this 16th Amendment or can we replace out tax code with the FairTax which can be understood here:

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_faq

[untwist]

thanks Hostage, for a very helpful post. I am not a lawyer (went to business school instead) but what you state about severability and the need for Congress to vote on it again is exactly my understanding. Michele Bachmann spoke to this in her campaign and corrected Romney’s stance that Obamacare could be simply stopped by executive order.

I suppose that short of a re-vote they can withhold funding, but as you say, the taxable provisions are still there. If the GOP has another strong, conservative result this year as in 2010, there can be impetus in the direction of private plans. Employment as we knew it, will change. Employers will hire far fewer direct employees and use more contractors. The need for personal, private plans will be critical. We will see.