If the law is overturned by the Supreme Court, the country will be left with...

• 40 million people or so, about 15% of the population, without any healthcare insurance, relying on hospital emergency rooms for all their healthcare needs.

• The primary insurer of the majority of the population, all those except those insured by Medicare, will be private health insurance companies. Analysis has indicated that the additional costs of private insurance compared to Medicare is about 30% higher (the additional administrative expenses plus profits that private insurers have compared to Medicare).

• The unsustainable growth of healthcare expenses as a percentage of GDP will continue unabated. (It isn't clear whether ObamaCare would have reduced such costs either, although the GAO has scored some savings.)

• It is unlikely that the ideologically split Congress could ever agree on any sort of plan to "bend the healthcare cost curve", provide health insurance to those who will be uninsured, or make any of the obviously needed changes to the Medicare/Medicaid enrtitlement programs.

What a mess. It's altogether uncertain whether ObamaCare would have provided any kind of improvement to the overall healthcare problems faced by the country. But if it's overturned by the Supreme Court, the health of our population will continue to lag that of many other developed countries and what we spend for healthcare will still be a multiple of double or even more than the next most expensive country. And we will be left with a Congress who have demonstrated that they are not inclined to legislate any comprehensive changes that would address the commonly agreed-upon problems.

Like I said, what a mess we will leave coming generations of Americans.