General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: By Ditching the Public Option, Obama Gave His Enemies a Path to the Supreme Court [View all]karynnj
(59,476 posts)if one option were to buy into Medicare. It would still be a requirement that you have to buy a product and the issue is whether a state could require that. The issue is not that for profit companies provide it. In fact, it is very likely that in most (or even all) there will be non-profits in the exchanges.
It is true that a straight Medicare for all, paid by a tax, would obviously be as Constitutional as Medicare itself. However, though that might be Constitutional, Bernie Sanders, who wrote a bill for that, said no more than 10 Senators would vote for it. There was no way to get the additional 50 needed. Likely because there were too many people who thought their current insurance was better than a public plan that would be the only choice. (though obviously a private company could sell insurance on top of the default plan that all would be in.
What this really is seems to me to be someone still angry that the public option was not added. There is NO legal support given to back up that argument - other than saying that Medicare has stood for 47 years. Adding that option, however, would not change the question of whether Congress has the right to MANDATE you select and buy one of the options. That it would have made many far happier with the bill and the options they would have does not make it more likely to survive the challenge. I did not hear any quotes from the SC that suggested that the problem was that all the insurance plans were public.
Additionally, it is disingenuous because it is very well known that even the idea of allowing people 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare was proposed - and for a few days thought to be the way the Senate would go - until Joe Lieberman said he would vote against the bill in that case. This would have defeated it.
I think there should have been a robust public option because it would have driven the insurance companies to lower prices due to its competition. That, though, is a far different question than having it would have changed the Constitutional question.