alea, the dispute to some is over amnd#10. The tax provisions are powers specifically granted to Fed, on more than one occasion and most notably by amnd#16.
Neither of those say that FED gov can force folks to buy a product.
Auto insurance mandates are at the state level, essenitally under the purview of amnd#10 as it seems "people" and "state gov" are somewhat interchangeable as the purpose of the fed constitution is to create and limit the federalism.
States could pretty much do what they choose, including slavery. Due process and equal porotection (amnd#14) was the big intrusion on states rights, but it took 5 years of war and many bodies to settle that matter.
So, generally, the Fed cannot go about forcing states hands on things like buying products ... hence the commerce clause dependency of the AHCA.
Even things like speed limits, drivers licenses, drug use and abuse, are all variable regulated at the fed level by either depending on the commerce clause, (drugs) or by coercion (speed limits etc) with the fed not requiring it per se, but attaching it to the ability to receive fed highway matching funds from the legally collected gas tax.
This might not go 5-4, one could be surprised and see roberts e.g. go the other way. while the the court has been getting stricter about the commerce clause, there are certainly precedents for this to be unheld.
The commerce clause was thrown under the bus during the depression, fed reigned supreme, with Lopes marking the first real effort to redfine and narrow the clause:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lopez
There are inklings that Roberts and Alioto are not clone on matters of the CC.
http://www.naag.org/federalism_in_the_roberts_court.php
And retired Justivce Stevens on Scalia:
Stevens, now 91 and more than a year into retirement, said in an interview in Washington this week that he is skeptical about contentions that Congress lacked authority to pass the health-care measure, which requires Americans to either buy insurance or pay a penalty.Stevens wrote the court’s opinion in the 2005 case, a 6-3 ruling that let the federal government ban marijuana even when the drug doesn’t cross state lines and is used only for medicinal purposes. As with health care, that case centered on Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.
“To the extent that the commerce clause is an issue in the case, it just seems to me very similar” to the medical marijuana dispute, said Stevens, who served on the court for 34 years.[...]
The 2005 marijuana ruling will be a pivotal precedent when the justices consider the health-care law. In his opinion for the court then, Stevens pointed to a constitutional provision letting Congress enact laws “necessary and proper” for carrying out powers specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
The majority included Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, both of whom had voted to restrict Congress’s commerce- clause power in earlier cases. Scalia didn’t adopt Stevens’s reasoning, instead providing his own analysis in a concurring opinion.
Stevens suggested Scalia might be willing to uphold the health-care law even if he disagrees with its substance.
“I would expect that the merits wouldn’t have the slightest impact on his analysis of the constitutional issue,” Stevens said. “I’m sure he’ll approach it as a judge should approach it.”
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