The linchpin of the Affordable Care Act has always been the requirement that everyone who is able must buy health insurance.
Without the mandate, all the other objectives in the Obamacare law — coverage for pre-existing conditions, expansion of Medicaid, coverage of conditions that are age- or gender-specific — fall apart because there are not enough premiums flowing in to cover the claims flowing out.
Yet that mandate, with the monetary penalty attached to it for noncompliance, has always been one of the most controversial and legally problematic areas of Obamacare. It only survived constitutional muster six years ago because Chief Justice John Roberts, in a 5-4 vote, called the penalty a tax that Congress had the power to levy.
Whether it was really a tax, however, has become a moot point since Republicans in Congress have since killed the penalty.
Still alive, though, is the question of whether the mandate is constitutional. Last week a federal judge in Texas said if it ever was, it was no longer since the mandate no longer carried a tax provision.
The dispute is bound to return to the Supreme Court, which is more conservative now than when it saved Obamacare in 2012.
Whether the individual mandate is declared illegal, however, may not matter, since there’s no practical way now to enforce it.
