George F. Will: Supreme Court's ruling makes Obamacare legal but rickety

Published: Sunday, Jan. 20 2013 12:00 a.m. MST

Unable to increase penalties substantially, Congress, in the context of "guaranteed issue" and "community rating," has only one way to induce healthy people to purchase insurance. This is by the hugely expensive process of increasing premium subsidies enough to make negligible the difference between the cost of insurance to purchasers and the penalty for not purchasing. Republicans will ferociously resist exacerbating the nation's financial crisis in order to rescue the ACA.

Because the penalties are constitutionally limited by the reasoning whereby Roberts declared them taxes, he may have saved the ACA's constitutionality by sacrificing its feasibility. So as the president begins his second term, the signature achievement of his first term looks remarkably rickety.

George Will's email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

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