Business Bullish as Supreme Court Wraps Up Obamacare Arguments

The National Federation of Independent Businesses -- which joined Florida and 25 other states in contesting the constitutionality of Obamacare -- is feeling pretty good about its chances after the U.S. Supreme Court concluded three days of hearings Wednesday.

Shortly after the last court session adjourned, Karen Harned, executive director of the NFIB's Small Business Legal Center, said, "What a day it was. If youre a small-business owner, you have a lot of reason to hope.

"Today, the question was: Does the rest of the law fall if the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional? We think absolutely yes.

"What you saw for the last hour-and-a-half were justices grappling with, How do we split this baby? How do we untie this Gordian knot that is the health-care law?

"We believe rather than trying to pick and choose which provisions survive or fall, they need to just scrap the whole thing and let Congress start over."

Randy Barnett, legal counsel for NFIB, added, "After these arguments, if the court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, no one in the country will be surprised."

Carrie Severino, former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and currently legal counsel to the Judicial Crisis Network, called it a good week.

"After yesterdays arguments raised hopes that the individual mandate would be declared unconstitutional, today showed there may also be five votes to take down the whole law with it.

"Any other alternative would risk destroying the insurance industry, bankrupting states, or getting the justices entangled in messy legislative decisions better left to Congress," Severino said.