"After last year's sweeping healthcare reform law drew more than 30 lawsuits challenging its constitutionality, it seemed just a matter of time before the measure had a day of reckoning at the Supreme Court. On Monday, the court announced that day would come next year, in advance of the presidential election, when it has agreed to hear appeals on five of those lawsuits and to consider at least four separate legal issues. Two of them concern the limits of congressional power, a hot-button issue for those who fear that the new law endangers personal liberty. But as several lower courts have found, the measure fits within the constitutional boundaries already laid out by the courts."
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-health-20111116,0,4240404.story

Here we go again. Now the Supreme Court wants to take up the debate over the constitutionality of the individual mandate which is an essential part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also knows as health care reform or "Obamacare". Of course the whole debate, stirred up by the Tea party movement, is beating around the bush failing to see the real issue here.

The real issue is NOT the individual mandate, but the fact that health care would still be not saving costs because the government has failed to pass mechanisms and powers that lower the cost of health care. Right now, the government is literally betting all its money on bulk purchase and special deals made with the health care industry that promised to save $2 trillion. But, just because the bill is not perfect yet does not mean that we need to repeal it. What bothers me the most about this attitude coming from the extreme pro-single payer left and the extreme right is that none of them have ever lived in a system with an individual mandate.

The most important thing is to have this bill as a foot in the door. We will build on this new system and who knows, by the end of the decade it might be a completely revamped system. But, nothing will happen when we keep demanding an absolutely ideal health care system in form of single payer or everybody paying out-of-pocket (which is an insane idea). Our first priority should be to provide health care for all. ". It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice." - Deng Xiaoping.

A decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act will be done in mid 2012.