Obviously, the state mandate is even more dangerous than the federal mandate because it IS constitutional.
I am betting that Obama is counting on Romney winning the GOP primary so that Obama can call for states to enact their own state mandate to back up the federal health care law, and I’m betting that Obama wants Romney to clinch the nomination before the Supreme court rules that the federal mandate is unconstitutional and throws out the whole law.
If Obama gets to keep the Obamacare, minus the federal mandate and calls for the states to enact their own mandates, Obama will have a real chance at winning re-election.
I don’t see a state mandate as more dangerous. States can’t print money, so there is no risk of inflation distorting the economy from a state health care program. Of course if a state begins to oppress, people can trot across the border, as blacks did in response to FDR’s programs to deny sharecroppers jobs, and as people are doing in response to California taxes and joblessness. The natural competition between states should help state politicians steer their course, or at least help people steer clear of the more corrupt sort of politician.
I am not sure that the state mandate is more dangerous.
California, the largest state is about 10% of the country. If health care overall is 17% of the country, and is also 17% of california, then a California mandate would be 1.7% of the country.
1.7% is much smaller amount at risk than the 17% of the federal, and other states would be smaller yet. If there was an advantage to not having a mandate, some could leave for other states, and the bad effects in the early adopting states could save the later adopting states from ever adopting it.
It would be tough for the states that made a bad policy choice, but that is the breaks for self government. Sometimes bad choices are made, and there has to be a corrective action. Not all corrective action need be in the courts (for unconstitutional laws). Some occurs in private, as new technologies make old laws obsolete. Sometimes new legislation is needed to correct bad legislation.