White House Sets Fallback on Obamacare

Perhaps President Barack Obama is coming to accept the inevitable. Administration lawyers argued to a federal judge this week that even if the new healthcare law's individual mandate to buy insurance is ruled unconstitutional, other parts of the law should be allowed to survive, The Hill reports.

“That argument, known as severability, is crucial to the law's survival should a judge rule that the mandate is unconstitutional,” the news service states.

The argument came Tuesday in a filing responding to the multi-state lawsuit led by Florida. Virginia and Ohio also are challenging the individual mandate.

"Some limited set of provisions of the [healthcare reform] Act cannot survive" if the mandate is overturned, the administration maintains. "Other parts of the statute, however, are plainly severable from ... the minimum coverage provision."