If Congress exempts federal workers, which it has, if members of SCOTUS shall have their own healthcare, which it will, then o’bamacare is DOA.
With the exemptions you describe why would Obamacare be dead on arrival DOA? I hope it would be but I don’t see how.
In order to repeal Obamacare we are going to need at least:
1. A Republican Non-Romney President, GOP control of the House, 60 Senators that will vote to allow a vote of repeal.
OR
2. Obama as President, GOP control of 2/3’s of the House and Senate to override a veto.
Conclusion:
The votes are not there.
The way to kill Obamacare now is to either:
1. Strike down the individual mandate and rule that severability is not implied, therefore the Act’s provisions are not severable,
OR
2. Strike down the individual mandate and send the law back to Congress for a resolution where Congress will decide to revote on the issue of severability. This would result in an immediate death of Obamacare as the House votes against severability.
I am not sure the SCOTUS can do 2. above, to send a portion of the case back to Congress for a clarification of intent. But I do think it is possible that the House can send to the SCOTUS a resolution of meaning and intent which would of course be against severability. The Senate could do the same but I think a GOP filibuster could stop that. Anyways interesting things to ponder.
The way to kill Obamacare in the future (if there is a future for America as we know it) is to pass H.R. 25 the ‘FairTax’ (http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_faq) and repeal the 16th Amendment. Also an amendment needs to be made to explicitly rollback abuses of the Commerce Clause. Here’s how that can be done:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044199838345461.html
Law Professor Barnett wrote the above about one month after Obamacare was passed.