Reply #68: It is essentially a tax credit for having health insurance.

[BzaDem]

You raise taxes by 1500 (or whatever the amount is) for everyone, and then you give a tax credit of 1500 if you choose to have health insurance (just like you get a tax credit if you have children, and just like many other tax credits).

The idea that it is unconstitutional is a right-wing fantasy. The Supreme Court will either not take the case, or they will vote 9-0 or 8-1 in favor of allowing Congress to do it.

What amazes me is that you seem to actually want the mandate to fall. As if that will somehow cause an automatic enactment of single payer. When in reality, if the mandate fell, Congress would immediately have to allow discrimination on the basis of pre-existing conditions. (Or, more likely, there will be a non-severability clause that links the mandate to the ban on discrimination. So if in a right-wing fantasy world the mandate gets stuck down, the ban on discrimination on the basis of pre-existing condition would get struck down automatically, with no Congressional input required).

Personally, if I am weighing whether or not to force everyone to pay premiums vs. whether to force a smaller group of people to go bankrupt, going with the former is not even a close call for me. I don't understand why it is even a close call to go with the former for any Democrat.