Douthat wonders:
If the Supreme Court invalidates the mandate, the justices’ traditional “presumption in favor of severability” will probably ensure that the rest of the legislation remains intact – which might reassure moderate voters that the health care bill wouldn’t actually trample their liberties, because the courts are on the case. Stripping away the law’s most unpopular component might make the rest of it marginally more popular. And setting a clear limit on liberalism’s ability to micromanage Americans’ private decisions might make voters feel more comfortable voting to re-elect their micromanager-in-chief.
Ross's argument rests on the idea that there are workarounds to keep the rest of the bill in place without mandates. They don't sound that plausible to me. And if your gut objection to the mandate is, like mine, an unease with being told by government you have to buy something, then I don't see why that feeling changes if it's a state doing it, rather than the feds.
But Ross may be onto something in a different way.
If the healthcare law is struck down entirely, people will immediately become more aware of what they will lose: for tens of millions, the option of health insurance at all; for many more, the ability to buy health insurance with a pre-existing condition; for millions of under 26-year-olds coverage under their parents' insurance, etc. It may be that the law's eradication by the court would educate the public about the aspects of the bill they like, and make the case for the law the president has signally and pathetically failed to do.
May be. I'm not comfortable predicting anything on this.
The Dish 