To Save Obamacare, Repeal the Mandate
Giving Republicans a symbolic victory could allow Democrats to preserve the ACA.
In declaring invalid the entire Affordable Care Act, Judge Reed O’Connor claimed he was respecting congressional intent. Didn’t Congress say the individual mandate was “essential” when it first adopted Obamacare? So if the mandate is now unconstitutional because it can no longer be sustained as a tax, O’Connor reasoned, Congress must have wanted the entire law to fall with it.
The reasoning is —but set that aside. If congressional intent is the key to O’Connor’s decision, Congress can intervene. And the best way for it to do so is not to
