Good news about the individual mandate, or bad?

According to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, as quoted by Daniel Foster at the Corner, the individual mandate has no enforcement mechanism—no means by which a non-purchaser of health insurance can be fined or otherwise punished. At first that sounds great, right? But, if it’s true, would it not weaken the challenge to the individual mandate being made by 14 states in the federal courts? If the law cannot actually fine people for not buying insurance, then the case for the law’s nonconstitutionality is weakened, and Obamacare will survive. But that would not be end of the story. Once the law becomes operative, the feds will find a way to fine non insurance buyers. But by then it will be too late to derail the law.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 27, 2010 01:09 PM | Send