Without individual mandate, does health law unravel?

Stateline: Could The Federal Health Law Survive Without The Individual Mandate?
Of all the complaints that have been made about the new federal health care law, the angriest have been against the law's "individual mandate," which requires everyone who can afford health insurance to purchase it or pay a fine. Starting in 2014, people who fail to buy in will be charged a tax penalty that will start at $95 a year and ratchet up to 1 percent of annual income for the more affluent. ... The mandate is a target not only of public resentment and political rancor but of myriad lawsuits and state legislation aimed at disabling it (Vestal, 4/6).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.