Associated Press: Mark Sherman- 'Justices Vote Friday on Health Care Law'

Source:Associated Press- SCOTS corespondent Mark Sherman talking about the process that the Supreme Court uses to decide cases.

"While the rest of us have to wait until June, the justices of the Supreme Court will know the likely outcome of the historic health care case by the time they go home this weekend." 

From the Associated Press

Based on the arguments and the questioning that came from the Justices on Tuesday and Wednesday, I expect the individual mandate to go down and be ruled unconstitutional. Justice Kennedy didn't sound like a swing vote to me any point this week. And actually Chief Justice Roberts sound the most open minded of any of the Conservatives on the Supreme Court this week. But I wouldn't expect him to vote for the individual mandate. 

So assuming the individual mandate goes down (and I'm not ready to call it dead until its dead because I support it) the next Congress and perhaps next President (depending on who wins in 2012) will have to look at health care reform part 2 in the next Congress and what cab be done without an individual mandate.

So the question is without the individual mandate or the Medicaid prevision without the individual mandate, the rest of the Affordable Care Act doesn't mean much as far as controlling our health care costs. Because with the individual mandate, we are all forced as a country to cover our own share of our health care costs. And we can end a lot of uncompensated health care in America. And end up forcing people to cover others health care. Which will bring down the health care costs of everyone. 

So another question is with the ACA as it stands now but without the individual mandate, can the rest of the ACA stay in place and is it workable and is it even worth having. And I'm leaning towards no but without the ACA, we go back to square one with people being denied health insurance, just because they actually need it. And we go back to lifetime caps and we continue uncompensated health care in America. 

So I'm expecting a Black Friday tomorrow for the Affordable Care Act. I'm leaning towards the whole thing getting thrown out back to square one. Leaving it up to the next Congress to do deal with it, if anything. But of course I hope I'm wrong and we'll wait and see and I expect to be blogging about whatever the Supreme Court says tomorrow.