Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on Obamacare—the first of many challenges to reach it because, to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, the more we learn about it, the more constitutional defects we find—the focus of public debate has returned to the policy arena. I’ve stepped to the side here because, as I said all along, I’m a simple constitutional lawyer, not a health care expert.
My colleagues Michael Cannon and Michael Tanner, however, have been doing yeoman’s work in describing what states should and shouldn’t do until we get federal officials willing to excise the Obamacare tumor from the body politic—and what Congress should then do to actually reform our health care system. They’ve collected their (and a few others’) work into a really cool e‑book, Replacing Obamacare: The Cato Institute on Health Care Reform.
I’ll let the Mikes expound on their various policy analyses and prescriptions elsewhere, but just wanted to highlight the legal parts:
Chapter 25 — Bill ‘Reforms’ Constitution — Robert A. Levy and Michael F. Cannon
Chapter 26 — The Case against President Obama’s Health Care Reform: A Primer for Nonlawyers — Robert A. Levy
Chapter 27 — Elena’s Nanny State — Michael D. Tanner
Chapter 28 — Obamacare Is Unconstitutional — Roger Vinson
Chapter 29 — HHS v. Florida — Cato’s individual mandate brief before the Supreme Court
Chapter 30 — Baking Some Humble Pie for Congress — Trevor Burrus
Chapter 31 — The Supreme Obamacare Question — Michael D. Tanner
Chapter 32 — That’s Not a Limiting Principle, Noah Feldman Edition — Michael F. Cannon
Chapter 33 — In Opposing Obamacare, We Were Serious the Whole Time — Ilya Shapiro
Chapter 76 — It Now Falls to Congress — Roger Pilon
Chapter 77 — We Won Everything but the Case — Ilya Shapiro
Chapter 78 — John Roberts, Judicial Pacifist — Ilya Shapiro
Chapter 79 — Health Law a Loser despite Court Victory — Michael F. Cannon
Chapter 80 — Chief Justice Roberts Sold Out the Constitution for Less Than Wales — Ilya Shapiro
Chapter 81 — ObamaCare’s Now a Bigger Mess — Michael D. Tanner
Chapter 82 — If ObamaCare Survives, Legal Battle Has Just Begun — Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon
These are white papers, essays, op-eds, blog posts, and even a brief that you may have come across already (and can Google separately), but now you can get them all—along with all the great policy stuff —in one convenient e‑book (whose table of contents you can see here).