With the Supreme Court hearing argument on the constitutionality of the individual mandate, some of its defenders are claiming it must exist to stop the so called “death spiral” in health insurance.  In reality only the premium subsidies, not the mandate per se, can actually stop such a theoretical event. The idea behind the death [...]

One of the most important questions the Justices will likely bring up tomorrow in the deliberation about the individual mandate will be: Is health care — or health insurance — actually unique? This raises the important issue sometimes called the “broccoli question.” The general idea behind it is that if the federal government has the [...]

In there questions during oral arguments, today, Supreme Court Justices strongly suggested that the 1876 Tax Anti-Injunction Act will not prevent them from ruling on the individual mandate this year.   David Dayen quotes some of the Justices’ questions that indicate they were not persuaded by the tax argument.  That also  appears to be the near [...]

As the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments today about the fate of the Affordable Care Act, it is important to keep in mind that the law remains very unpopular. A CBS New/New Times poll shows only about a third of Americans actually support the law, while nearly half the country disapproves of it. From [...]

It is day one in the almost unprecedented three days of Supreme Court oral arguments regarding the Affordable Care Act.  The first thing on the Court’s agenda is whether or not they can even rule on the case yet. The Court decided to devote 90 minutes of oral arguments today to deal only with that [...]

Today is the two year anniversary of the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Despite the widely promoted insane belief the that law would magically get more popular after it was passed, two years later the law has only gotten less popular. Research indicates that the intense unpopularity of the [...]

While much of the news next week will be dominated by how the Supreme Court could affect the future of health care in this country through its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, I thought now may be a good time to talk about how future health care developments could affect the Supreme Court. This [...]

The American people continue to strongly dislike the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, and the intensity of this opposition has only increased. According to Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll only 32 percent of the country has a favorable opinion of the mandate, while 64 view it unfavorably. Impressively a 54% majority of the [...]

The Affordable Care Act, President Obama signature health care reform law, continues to slowly but steadily become less popular as time goes on. A new Quinnipiac University poll found that 52 percent of voters think Congress should repeal the law, while just 39 percent think Congress should let it stand as is. This is the [...]

A group of fifty doctors along with the non-profits groups, Single Payer Action and Our Economy, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act should be struck down. From Single Payer Action’s blog: The doctors are challenging the government’s claim that the individual mandate is [...]