Oh my - where to begin...

This is a fine example of the right wing media cherry picking a line from a very sophisticated argument. 

First, you have to understand the nature of appellate arguments and then you have to  listen to the argument to even begin to understand this quote. Kaytal was not recommending a course of action or remedy. He was responding to what was essentially a hypothetical question. In the Heart of Atlanta case, the Supreme Court did not address the idea that hotels and motels could just close up shop to avoid serving everyone. Judge Sutton knows this and the attorneys arguing the case know this. This was a construct of Judge Sutton, not Kaytal. Thus the answer included the language, "If we're going to play that game..."It was Judge Sutton who asked if he meant that someone could just make less money to get out of the mandate. Kaytal said that arguing that hotel owners could just get out of the business and that people could just make less money is "fanciful." That was a nice way of saying that Judge Sutton was conjuring up a huge red herring. Here is what was actually said

KATYAL: Well, but they're in that business but they're forcing people to serve - they're forcing people to do something that they wouldn't otherwise do.

SUTTON: They're in the business, they're told if you're going to be in the business, this is what you have to do. In response to that law they could have said 'we now exit the business.'

KATYAL: Sure -

SUTTON: Individuals don't have that option.

KATYAL: Judge Sutton, if we're going to play that game, I think that game could be played here as well because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in if people have earned a certain amount of income. So it's a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self-insuring. It's not just on self-insuring on their own. So I guess one could say, just like the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Motel, someone doesn't need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at the -

SUTTON: That wasn't one of - in any, a single speech given in Congress about this law.

KATYAL: Well, I think that -

SUTTON: The idea that the solution if you don't like it is make a little less money?

KATYAL: No because the solution -- in justice, it wasn't of course in Heart of Atlanta Motel that people said 'you don't have to be restaurant owners' and the like, and I think what congress was reacting to was a world in which there are 50 million people who are uninsured and who are increasing the premiums, across state lines, to the tune of $1,000 per family.

If you would like to hear what was really said at that moment, I isolated just that part - click on the link below. It starts with Sutton. You really have to listen to the entire section of the argument though. Kaytal is excellent at what he does - his ability to address and distinguish the cases was excellent. He was hammered by Judge Sutton, known on the 6th Circuit as the “intellectual engine behind some of the majority’s more conservative opinions.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHu0FKEZIqM

DS took a new job last month (no longer with a university). He's near to the top income bracket, I believe, with no deductions and no dependents. He turned down a job offer that offered him 33% more. He turned the offer not because of the money, or the company, but who he was going to work with and where the work was located. 

I do know that we should have done something during Clinton's era. 

I do know that the old system prior to Obama was failing. 

I do know that the new and to be implemented system will fail not necessarily because it was badly design but because there are no jobs that pay taxes. 

In October, our Cobra ends. DW will hit the big 65 in 2012. I will hit it in 2015. We are in forced retirement mode in taking care of senior parents. 

I doubt that we will make the  qualifying income threshold (pension & SS) and could avoid HI. We do have sufficient assets to afford HI. 

The rulings so far follow the party lines of the makeup of the panel, so he probably could just whistle Dixie and get the same decision.