telling us what to do, right? I actually think that is a cover for "we don't want to help poor
people get insurance."

even Romney's saying he likes the pre-existing features

If the SC okays all but the mandate...what will they complain about then?

Aside from the "political" view, u are right...if there's no mandate, there's no huge pool to drive prices down. the pool may end up costing as much as you have to pay out there anyway. no one will buy and no one will have to.

But Republicans have never been known for their consistency.

Personally I don't want the mandate thrown out. Though I'm a little worried it will be.

And when it happens, it will be a game-changer because the response to save the bill will define this election. Obama is going to be in a tough spot because if it's thrown out, the whole bill is basically useless and there really are only two options: Suck it up, concede the bill can't succeed without a mandate and, as hard as it will be, get behind the idea of repealing the whole thing, or taking it back to the Republican House and working out a very narrow compromise that keeps some of the better things from the law but not the whole thing. Neither option is going to help Obama. The latter will send liberals into a tizzy because it won't be a public option or universal healthcare, while the former would show him as extremely weak.

But there really is no other option. If Dean believes a Republican House will readily support a single-payer plan, well then, we's smoking some fine Vermont weed.

No way that they'll do this whole thing over again. He'll try to save what he can and put the ball in their court.

Fight for the pre-existing conditions, women's healthcare and allowing kids to stay on their parents' insurance until a certain age.

But it's going to be contentious and I have a feeling it'll tick off a lot of liberals.

It's the linchpin of the entire bill. In fact, a great deal of economists believe the worst-case scenario is that the SC strikes down the mandate and leaves the remainder of the bill standing, as costs would skyrocket, as fewer Americans would buy coverage and those who do, will probably do so because they're sicker and planning on using it. With more sick Americans enrolling, premiums would spike and send us into an even worse healthcare crisis.

IF the mandate is struck down, which it probably will be, the bill will be sent back to Congress for massive revisions to keep the whole system from collapsing. I know some here would LOVE to see it collapse, but if it does, it won't be the insurance CEOs hurting, it will be millions and millions of sick Americans who do have insurance and either lose it, or can't afford it anymore.

Something will have to be done. Dean is betting on a more progressive bill from a regressive congress. I don't see it that way.

Obama will be faced with the tough prospects of conceding his legislation now becomes useless and allowing the House & Senate to strike it down, or dramatically changing things and getting what Rahm Emanuel originally proposed in the early days of 2010 when it looked like the bill wouldn't pass - namely, bits and pieces of the overall bill.

The purpose of the bill was to keep insurance companies and medical providers from leaving sick people out in the cold without treatment.

And one of the primary problems was that insurance companies turned away sick people, or people at risk of being sick.

So there was a tradeoff, to prevent what in economics circles is known as a moral hazard. The insurers have to provide insurance to everyone who signs up and pays the bill, and they can't jack up costs for them too far over what they charge healthy people. The tradeoff is that to prevent the moral hazard, everyone MUST buy insurance, so healthy people don't go without and sign up only when they get sick.
'

The reason why I ask is because without mandates insurance companies can only charge what consumers are willing to buy. If most people are required to buy, insurance companies can raise the price. If there were some sort of price controls than it would prevent that.

A study by Yale Law Journal concluded adverse selection is an exaggerated thread.
http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal/essay/adverse-selection-in-insurance-markets:-an-exaggerated-threat/

are the limits on premiums that can be spent on administrative and profits. Only 10% of premiums from a large group can go to the insurance companies for non health-care related expenditures. 15% for individual / small groups.

This is a powerful statement.

but Dean isn't a crackpot and was a major figure within the Democratic Party.

Without the mandate, we're putting the entire future of the healthcare bill in the hands of the Republican-controlled House. If anyone really believes they'll back a single-payer plan, they're absolutely being nutty on this issue. Dean is generally a reasonable person, but not here.

And vote straight democrat we can get the Congress back and there won't be any rethugs control congress

National Nurses United opposes the mandate. So did the PHNP.

I know no fewer than 6 people who applied and can't afford three hundred something a month. I helped one out today who got a 160 buck speeding ticket and was beside herself with panic on how she was going to be able to pay it.

Why can't we just try it and if it's a problem then revisit?

If the Supreme Court throws out the mandate, you can kiss goodbye the entire legislation. Yeah, sure, we can hope that one day the Congress will pass a true universal healthcare plan, but c'mon. Has Dean been paying attention the past four years or is he being daft for the sake of being daft?

Unless Obama can somehow be reelected with monumental majorities in the House & Senate, any idea that this U.S. Congress will work out a healthcare plan that's even more progressive than what we have is utterly foolish. We just saw how difficult it was getting anything moved with a strong majority in the House & Senate and now that's all going to just change and we're going to get a single-payer plan through? HAHA I love Dean, I worked my butt off for Dean in '04 and was devastated when he lost to Kerry in Iowa and then New Hampshire, but dammit, Howard, you're absolutely, positively ridiculous on this one.

You want the individual mandate gone? Fine. It's probably gone anyway. Then the bill will go back to the REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED HOUSE and be whittled down to hardly anything. They'll keep small snippets of it and that's about it.

But I'm sure many liberals will be cheering when the Supreme Court strikes down the mandate. But a year from now, when the entire bill is gone and a few insurance companies are denying people with pre-existing conditions again, they'll complain that we need to overhaul the healthcare system again. Yeah, well, good luck with that.

I bet even the greedy insurance industry is a little worried about how things would unwind in the event mandate is thrown out.

I still think there is a chance one of the right wingers on the Court is worried about what will happen to their grandchildren, or has been screwed by insurance industry in the past.

All it takes is his vote to decide this and he's a swing enough vote to actually vote to keep the mandate. But I don't know.

I dont like the individual mandate but it does appear without it the whole thing falls apart. I wish we had another crack at it to try to improve it but with Rethugs controlling the House it does seem futile.

All we need is
1. Keep the senate
2. Take the house back
3. Get Harry Reid to nuke the filibuster on day 1 of the next session

All are very necessary but doable, with hard work. This is what the good doctor really wants.

And to bet the whole bill, and the future of healthcare, on that possibility is far too big of a gamble.

I don't ask this to be adversarial, only because I don't know.

Has he supported mandates in the past?

Hillary had it in her plan and Obama opposed it.. It was ONLY after he became President and figured out the ONLY Health Insurance Plan he would be able to sign into law would have to have a mandate to protect the insurance companies....

The mandate is unconstitutional and should be tossed.

from pulling some sort of Dream Act II?

Say, people turned down by insurance companies can buy Medicare? Not present a bill, but just an executive order.