The Obama administration has decided not to appeal to the full 11th circuit court and go directly to the Supreme Court, which means that we could see a ruling as early as June.
I’m not sure what the tactics are here.
There are three legal questions here
- The first question is whether they can rule on the mandate at all, since the anti-injunction act of 1869 prohibits suits against taxes until the tariff is actually levied.
- The second question is whether if part of the law is struck down, is the entire law struck down. (severability)
- The third question (and the biggie) is whether or not the mandate is constitutional.
The third question is a slam dunk based on precedent, but I expect at least 4 of the justices to go full Bush v. Gore and find some contrived form of logic to ignore that.
It pretty much comes down to Justice Kennedy, but he ruled for Bush in Bush v. Gore, so I think that Obamacare is toast.