On the illusion of universal health care, ObamaCare, and constitution...

Since the brouhaha of ObamaCare, the latest uproar is on the constitutionality of its health insurance mandate after the federal court in Virginia ruled that the mandate is unconstitutional for forcing citizens to buy health insurance coverage.

Ok, so there are two parts of the question. What the ObamaCare is trying to achieve, and how. The "what" part seems pretty obvious. The goal is to providing universal health care. Isn't that obvious, one would say. But you can't be too sure if you ask Obama what it truly means for universal health care.

Before answering that "what" question, one should perhaps look at what universal health care coverage means in other advanced countries, like Europe or Australia. Those countries, while spending less per person in medical care, truly covers everyone in country. And the government pays for it, by taxes, naturally.

Which, to the eyes of American, is a big no-no, to impose high taxes on everyone, but at the same time, truly covers everyone. To the conservative GOP, that would be close to blasphemy, a socialist welfare state. The idea of cradle-to-grave is a non-starter. That's exactly what federal programs like social security and medicare are like, but you will not hear any GOP pushing the scrapping of those programs. These days, that kind of entitlement mentality, that once it's there, it becomes one's birth right and cannot be taken away, is too dear to their heart to part with. So, never mind the fiscal conservatism.

As to the "how" part of the question, the Dem and Obama try to claim the mantle of providing universal health care in name, by expanding health care to more of the tens of millions of folks who don't have any coverage right now. That's the essence of the health insurance mandate in the ObamaCare. Since GOP would never agrees to the execution of universal health care the way that Europe and Australia does, namely, to have the central government pay for everyone's coverage by imposing high taxes, ObamaCare now mandates everyone to buy coverage themselves! Voilà, problem solved! Suddenly there'll be a thriving health insurance business. Everyone is paying for each other's health care needs. And the federal government doesn't need to do a thing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for universal health care. Afterall, I find it most ridiculous for people to consider whether to accept a job not just based on whether the job itself, but if the employer provides health care. I would never dream of having to do that, not when I was in Australia or England, not even in Hong Kong, the most capitalist place in the world. Worse thing with this mandate is that, everyone is now being held hostage and beholden on the insurance industry to decide how much premium we have to pay. But the worst thing that Obama has done in this whole ObamaCare fiasco is that, he let the lobbyists and GOP delete the public health care option, which is arguably the thing that would more truly bring America closer to universal health care, as everyone in the world knows it.

But I have to say, you have to give it to the Americans, to have such faith in the legal system and the constitution, that everything and anything can be - and it seems like, it should be - settled in courts.

So it is then that the case is almost destined to go to Supreme Court, and more drama ensues. What will happen to the wobbly two-legged stool in the ObamaCare setup, when the federal government can't force the healthy ones to buy insurance coverage, so that the insurance industry will hopefully make enough money to care for the sick and the poor? That's anyone's guess, but my bet is, it's not going to hold up under scrutiny.

Everyone touts the avant garde law in Massachusetts in which ObamaCare is based on. But if you ask anyone in Massachusetts, you should not be surprised to find not much praise to that law, with the largest voice going to increasingly loud complaint of how much health care costs of private insurance is growing, year-on-year. Checks on premium growth are almost non-existent. If you ask me, I'd say, that idea is a disgrace. But Ted Kennedy would not be around to fix the mess he pushed on us.