Struck down

Healthcare was on my mind this weekend, mostly because a nasty little stomach virus
hit my family hard. My son got it first on Friday, followed by my wife late Saturday
night, and then finally me on Sunday night, just in time for a long workweek.

Nothing like starting a new workweek flat on your back, thanks to the flu.

I have written this before, but the flu bug can be a dangerous little thing, just
like the thought of revolution. First Tunisia, then Algeria, and then Egypt. Next,
Jordan? We will see.

The Obama administration should be concerned about what is happening in the Middle
East.

They should also be concerned with what is happening with their healthcare law.

A second federal judge said that their individual mandate is unconstitutional. That
is the beginning of a trend. Does anyone seriously believe that the Roberts court
is going to overturn the ruling of two lower courts to do the Obama White House
any favors?

If the individual mandate is not unconstitutional, it ought to be, and frankly,
I don’t care if it was originally a Republican idea. Mandating that people buy a
product from the private marketplace seems wrong to me (and to a lot of other people).

As Judge Vinson wrote in his ruling about the dubious nature of the individual mandate:
“Congress could require that everyone above a certain income threshold buy
a General Motors automobile — now partially government-owned — because those who
do not buy GM cars (or those who buy foreign cars) are adversely impacting commerce
and a taxpayer-subsidized business.”

If there isn’t going to be an individual mandate, the entire Obama healthcare law
is worthless. Without the mandate, insurance rates will skyrocket. Of course, with
the mandate, rates were skyrocketing anyway.

It seems that the Congress and the White House have a choice of two paths should
ObamaCare be thrown out. They could continue to expand the size and scope of Medicare,
making it, in a sense, universal. That would achieve the liberal goal of government-run
healthcare for the country, but it would put us into bankruptcy.

Or they can choose to use market forces to give consumers more choices at less cost.

They can do that by stopping lawsuit abuse, by ending the state monopolies of health
insurance companies, allowing small businesses to band together to negotiate better
prices, and otherwise allowing competition to take hold of a marketplace that has
been skewed dramatically by government intervention.

It seems likely that the Supreme Court will strike down the individual mandate.
Where do we go from there?