Clinton says Supreme Court might strike the individual mandate from the health law

The Hill: Clinton: Supreme Court Could Rule Against Healthcare Law
There's a chance that the Supreme Court could rule the so-called "individual mandate" in the healthcare reform law unconstitutional, but on the whole the bill will stay intact, former President Bill Clinton said. "Well, I think -- I guess, you know, there's some chance, given how political it is, the courts, that they would strike down the mandatory purchase, although I find it amazing that they would. I mean you can make people buy automobile liability insurance," Clinton said in an interview with CNN taped Friday. "And the combined impact of the burden of people not being insured on the rest of us economically is nowhere near that of health care" (Strauss, 4/30).

CNN: Dr. Gupta Talks Health Care Reform With Former President Clinton
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... "I think the most interesting thing is in the -- the Republican budget, the line budget, they proposed to save money on the budget by giving everybody a Medicare voucher in 2022. But between now and then, they would repeal almost everything in the health care bill that will lower the cost of health care. So what this bill will do will actually increase the cost of health care. We can bring the cost of health care much closer to that of our nearest competitors without undermining the quality of health care, but we need some time to do it and to be fair" (Gupta, 4/30).

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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.