I agree that that would be the perception, but this Law was cobbled together by Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid with very little input from Obama.
Yeah, but the Great Constitutional Perfessor COULD have read the bill BEFORE he signed it [which I doubt he did]. IF he had read the bill, being the Great Constitutional Perfessor he is, he SHOULDA realized that the mandate was UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
At that point, he SHOULDA called Pelosi and Reid into his office - slapped them around a bit with a mackeral, and sent them packing back to Capitol Hill to re-write the bill ...