Supreme Court Preview

Supreme Court Preview by MSW.  MGB: The likelihood is that the last minute of oral argument on the second day is determinative, when the Solicitor General conceded that even if the Commerce Clause does not apply, the taxing power does, as proved by United States v. New York. That negates the scenarios of the third day of argument. If the mandate falls and takes gauranteed issue and community rating with it, the upcoming crisis in the insurance agency will be averted, although there seems no reason to overturn the Medicare reforms, including the new revenues. I suspect that this result would roil those who funded the lawsuit, who are much more about dodging the new taxes than about overturning mandates. If mandates fall, but nothing else does, the health insurance industry is toast.


Even if the mandate is upheld, and I expect it will be, it is inadequate to deal with community rating and gauranteed issue (pre-existing condition reform). I suspect that Health Insurer stock prices have not yet priced in the inadequacy of mandates, believing that the court will rule against mandates. This will change sometime this week and likely lead to a collapse in the stock price that will bring about single-payer insurance as these firms go into bankruptcy, or at the very least a deal on a subsidized public option in exchange for an end to mandates, community rating and gauranteed issue - with the pool of individuals in the public option increasing until it effectively becomes a single-payer program. Single-payer catastrophic insurance might also be negotiated, with employers funding health savings accounts (oddly, with a mandate that no one will object to) and employees funding linked flexible spending accounts to bridge the gap between the HSA balance being accumulated and the catastrophic deductible (and to fund such things as accupuncture and abortion).