Dear Justice Alito

I sure hope that fifty million people won't continue to go without health insurance and many of them die prematurely or have to declare bankruptcy because you didn't understand the basic principle of insurance.

JUSTICE ALITO: But isn't that really a
2 small part of what the mandate is doing? You can
3 correct me if these figures are wrong, but it appears to
4 me that the CBO has estimated that the average premium
5 for a single insurance policy in the non-group market
6 would be roughly $5,800 in -- in 2016.
7 Respondents -- the economists who have
8 supported the Respondents estimate that a young, healthy
9 individual targeted by the mandate on average consumes
10 about $854 in health services each year. So the mandate
11 is forcing these people to provide a huge subsidy to the
12 insurance companies for other purposes that the Act
13 wishes to serve, but isn't -- if those figures are
14 right, isn't it the case that what this mandate is
15 really doing is not requiring the people who are subject
16 to it to pay for the services that they are going to
17 consume? It is requiring them to subsidize services
18 that will be received by somebody else.
19 GENERAL VERRILLI: No, I think that -- I do
20 think that's what the Respondents argue. It's just not
21 right. I think it -- it really gets to a fundamental
22 problem with their argument.
23 JUSTICE GINSBURG: If you're going to have
24 insurance, that's how insurance works.