First, I am convinced that Obama unquestionably wants our religious liberty because that is the core of the leftist philosophy. It is the core of The Frankfurt School whose spawn is Cloward and Piven and Saul Alinsky. There can be no socialist utopia if there are dissenters from the collective and since colonial days the Judeo-Christian heritage in America has meant the unequivocal recognition of the individual.
Second, I think the regulatory mandate is a blunder not a calculated power grab. No reasonable observer can believe that the Catholic Church will simply walk away from the vast infrastructure of hospitals and senior care etc. and abandon them to the state and not even the ideologues in the Obama administration could have been angling for that. We are talking about billions and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure at stake. I believe the bureaucracy simply didn't think much about it and assumed that the repercussions would be overridden. I do not believe they anticipated a grab of so much wealth because it would be simply abandoned to them by the Catholic Church and many evangelicals as well.
Third, we cannot clearly predict the fate of Obamacare either in the Supreme Court or in the Senate after the election. It is probable that there will not be 60 Republican senators but that does not mean that a way cannot be found to eviscerate Obamacare. Funding can simply be withheld. If Obamacare is nothing more than an unconstitutional relinquishment of article 1 congressional responsibility to legislate to regulators, it is a creature of regulation. Therefore, it can be undone by regulation.
If they cannot be explicitly repealed by legislation, four or eight years of regulation purgatory can render it impossible to revive. Equally, four or eight years with no money can render it impossible to revive.
Certainly, a substitute piece of legislation can be crafted which will give a few Democrat Senators cover to vote for a substitute healthcare reform which effectively repeals Obamacare.
No one today can predict with certainty what will happen.
