Ezra Klein's take on why Hudson's ruling isn't actually bad news for HCR (and answers Torie's question).
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/12/is_the_hudson_ruling_good_news.html
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The real danger to health-care reform is not that the individual mandate will be struck down by the courts. That'd be a problem, but there are a variety of ways to restructure the individual mandate such that it doesn't penalize anyone for deciding not to do something (which is the core of the conservative's legal argument against the provision). Here's one suggestion from Paul Starr, for instance. The danger is that, in striking down the individual mandate, the court would also strike down the rest of the bill. In fact, that's exactly what the plaintiff has asked Hudson to do.
Hudson pointedly refused. "The Court will sever only Section 1501 [the individual mandate] and directly-dependent provisions which make specific reference to 1501." That last clause has made a lot of pro-reform legal analysts very happy. Go to the text of the health-care law and run a search for "1501." It appears exactly twice in the bill: In the table of contents, and in the title of the section. There do not appear to be other sections that make "specific reference" to the provision, even if you could argue that they are "directly dependent" on the provision. The attachment of the "specific reference" language appears to sharply limit the scope of the court's action.
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This is a very good ruling indeed. The individual mandate always seemed unconstitutional, even if extremely necessary. The good news is that it isn't too hard to make people get health insurance without forcing them to (although I suppose stupid conservatives still wouldn't get it, but that's not exactly a bad thing. Evolution at work and all).
Only problem, it would still effectively sink the other major part of the bill: It is impractical to cover pre-existing conditions without having premiums for everybody covered by pre-existing conditions be paid for all the time. If the Supreme Court strikes down the individual mandate, but not any other part of the bill, then Congress must act, or else the health insurance industry shuts down in 2014.
