Will The Supreme Court Strike Down All Of ObamaCare

Under that mandate, beginning in 2014 virtually all Americans will be required to purchasegovernment-approved health insurance.But the judge, Christopher Conne the extremely unpopular requirement is unconstitutional, because it goes beyond Congress's delegated powers.And more important, unlike most other judges who have reviewed this issue, Connor struck downseveral other parts of ObamaCare as well, ruling that you can't sever them from the offending mandate, because they are too intimately intertwined with it. This latter aspect raises the best hope to date that we might be able to secure total elimination of ObamaCare in the Supreme Court.How might that happenTo explain, me mt step back and do a quick review of how the courts have ruled so far, on the two big questions in this area: the constitutionality of the mandate, and whetherthe mandate is severable from the rest of the act. Judge Connor's ruling brings to three the number of federal district courtsin Virginia, Florida, and now Pennsylvaniathat have found the individual mandate unconstitutionalOther district courtshave unfortunately found the oppositeThe appeals courts have been split on the issue, with one circuitthe Fourthupholding itin theVirginia caseand anotherthe Eleventh striking it downin the Florida caseClearly, the Supreme Court will have to step in to resolve the issue. But assuming the Court decides the mandate is beyond Congress's enumerated powers, how might itrule on severability? That will depend on whether it even has to rule on itAnd that's why this weeksdecision is so important if the Court strikes down the mandate, it would also be obligated to strikedown the whole statute, absent an explicit clause therein providing for severability or severabilitythat is, clear language guiding the courts as to exactly what Congress intendedshould any particular provision of the bill be struck downThe default assumption, in the absence ofclear guidance, is that everything in the bill rises or falls togetherseverability clause was included in an early version of the President's health care bill but didn't make the final cutomissionNo one knows for sureas we know only too well, the Supreme Court doesn't always go in for traditional In fact, based on recent precedents, the Court could very easily read severability into the bill, in which case it would try to preserve everything not directly dependent on the offending provision.If, on the other hand, it finds that the offending provision was an "essential" part of the "original legislative bargain" that brought the law into being, then it could very well feel obliged to strike down the entire statuteThe mandate was most certainly an essential part ofthe original legislative bargain between the health insurance lobby and WashingtonDemocratsSo while it's a bit tenuous, it's still possible the whole bill could be struck downThe key will be what the appeals courts do on the issueHere's how things have played out at that levelthe set of mandates spelling out exactly what kind of coverage people must buythe law's mandate on insurance companies to take all comers, regardless of health statusthe law's provision forbidding insurers from denying coverage for preexisting conditions