I am still nervous about this. Obamacare was declared dead once before in congress after Brown was elected. Of course Holder won’t agree to expedite the case to SCOTUS because he is hoping Obama will be reelected and one of the (more or less) conservative justices will die or become ill. And I am not 100% sure that Kennedy would overturn it even if it came before the current court.
Meanwhile, the executive branch is going to extend the tentacles of Obamacare as deep into the system as possible, so that “overturning it would cause great harm....”
I was never confident that this would be overthrown. While taxing you more FOR NOT doing something (aka a fine) seems new, them taxing you less FOR doing something has been a standard for a long time (aka tax credits.) Furthermore there is No penalty for not paying the fine/tax making it easier to argue it's just a punitive tax. So going in front of the SCOTUS is indeed a crapshoot.
The reason why these suits are important is to keep the PR political battle against the unpopular parts alive in the voters eyes. Never underestimate the importance of guiding the voters opinions. Having 53 states sue over Obama-care shows voters the immorality of the Federal government forcing Obama-care on all the states.
I called Boehners office and told him the next step is to have votes on a bill that allows individual states to do total opt-outs including the new taxes. Let them oppose that.