Possible outcomes in pivotal health care law case

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saving its biggest case for last, the Supreme Court is expected to announce its verdict Thursday on President Barack Obama's health care law. The outcome is likely to be a factor in the presidential campaign and help define John Roberts' legacy as chief justice. But the court's ruling almost certainly will not be the last word on America's tangled efforts to address health care woes. The problems of high medical costs, widespread waste and tens of millions of people w...

One of the things that has confused me about the attack on the Affordable Care Act's constitutionality is that it's so limited. The Affordable Care Act isn't under attack, actually. Only the individual mandate is. And though the individual mandate is important to have, it could be replaced with some sort of automatic enrollment scheme, or some sort of modified penalty in which failure to purchase insurance locked you out of the bill's protections for a certain number of years.