Today is the deadline for proponents of the Affordable Care Act to submit their friend-of-the court briefs in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, a case challenging the constitutionality of the law’s individual mandate. Last year, a U.S. District Court Judge rejected More’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the law, arguing that the mandate fell within the purview of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, since an individuals’ decision not to purchase coverage will “have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers, and the insured population who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance.”

The case now heads to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but a comparison of the different groups that have submitted amicus briefs is telling. While health advocacy groups, disease-specific organizations, and health care providers are standing on the side of reform, the anti-reform column is dominated by politicians and conservative think tanks. In fact, supporters of Thomas More’s lawsuit were unable to attract a single health care organization to join in their effort:

Since President Obama signed reform into law in March of 2010, at least 20 cases, involving federal district courts in 15 states, have been filed. More than a dozen have already been dismissed on one ground or another.

As we previously reported, the Vermont legislature is currently considering a proposal that would pave the way for the state to enact a single payer health care system. While the proposal’s authors found that the state would be able to offer more comprehensive health care and save more money than the recently-passed federal health care law if it were to enact single payer, it is important to note that under current law the state cannot request a waiver to be exempted from the federal health law until 2017.

To counter this, Vermont’s congressional delegation is backing an amendment by Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) that would move the waiver date up from 2017 to 2014. Earlier this week, Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Jan Schawkowsky (D-IL) told ThinkProgress that they support Welch’s amendment; additionally, Reps. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) appeared to support the principle behind the amendment.

Today, Vermont governor Peter Shumlin (D), who supports the single-payer proposal, appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about his plans to enact it. He explained that he would like to build a bipartisan coalition under the principle of local control and state’s rights to get the waiver date moved up, and told Goodman that, by requesting a change in the waiver, Vermont was not “asking for one additional federal dollar.” Rather, the state is asking to be “able to pool our federal dollars into our existing system here in Vermont, in a uniform system. And I think that will appeal, frankly, to more conservative members of the Republican Congress.” “Give us local control,” he continued. “I think that will appeal to, frankly, some of the Tea Party governors that I have just been elected with”:

AMY GOODMAN: Governor Shumlin, why doesn’t it conflict with Obama’s healthcare proposal? What are the waivers you would need?

GOV. PETER SHUMLIN: Well, the biggest waiver we need—and, you know, we have an incredible congressional delegation, Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders and Representative Welch—but the biggest waiver we need is to ensure that by 2014 we can get the waivers that we need to implement this plan. And really what we want to do is—we’re not asking for one additional federal dollar. All we’re asking is that we are able to pool our federal dollars into our existing system here in Vermont in a uniform system. And I think that will appeal, frankly, to more conservative members of the Republican Congress. What we’re saying is, give us local control. Let us go our own way. We’re not asking for more federal dollars than any other state. What we are asking is that you let state rights stand up and let us design our own system, using those federal dollars as we see fit. And I think that will appeal to, frankly, some of the Tea Party governors that I have just been elected with.

Watch it:

Vermont Digger asked Leigh Tofferi, a Blue Cross-Blue Shield lobbyist based in the state, about the possible move to a single payer system. “If there’s a single payer system, we’d like to be the single payer,” she replied. Harvard’s Dr. William Tsiao, who helped design the Taiwanese single payer system and was one of the consultants responsible for drafting Vermont’s single payer proposal, noted that private insurance companies could continue to play a role in a single payer system by providing supplementary insurance, much like they do with Medicare. However, he also warned that instead of working with reformers, insurers could also use their “deep pockets nationally [to] oppose reforms due to the threats they pose to the Vermont market and other markets that could follow Vermont’s lead.”

The health sector has kept quiet throughout the GOP’s futile effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the House, saving its ammunition for the more serious campaign of changing and tweaking parts of the law. This morning Karen Ignagni, the insurance industry’s chief spokesperson, offered a glimpse into what insurers will be lobbying for in the months and years ahead. She hinted that the industry isn’t interested in repeal and is instead focusing on the following issues. Watch it:

Let’s go through it piece by piece:

- Eliminating new taxes on the health insurance industry: Beginning in 2014, the health law imposes an annual fee on the health insurance sector, but Ignagni refers to this as “an unprecedented sales tax on small businesses and individuals” — “a health care sales tax.” Unless the industry offsets the increase through innovation, some of the costs may be passed down to employers and employees — but both of these groups will be receiving tax credits to offset the purchase of coverage. Generally speaking, in a law that pays for its coverage expansions and reduces the deficit, somebody has to pay more if others get more.

- Wants to charge younger people more for insurance: Ignagni claims that “anyone under 40 would see a huge increase” in costs and the industry has already been lobbying the Department of Health and Human Services to adopt a transition period for the age-rating provision of the Affordable Care Act. Under the law, beginning in 2014, insurers will have to guarantee coverage to everyone who applies and charge older people no more than three times what younger individuals would pay. But the industry is saying that if it had to adopt that change instantaneously in January of 2014, younger individuals would face big price increases. This argument isn’t particularly convincing, however, since many young people will actually pay less for coverage because they’ll qualify for subsidies and possibly even Medicaid. That will significantly increase participation among young adults, improve the risk pool, and probably outweigh any negative effects due to age rating. My post on that here.

- Essential benefits packages should be very narrowly defined: Ignagni claims that “if the essential benefit package is so broadly structured that these individuals and small businesses are going to find that the current proposals are unaffordable and they’re going to have to buy up, that is going to be a third leg of the stool in terms of cost increases. ” While there is a reasonable argument that regulators shouldn’t overfill the minimum benefit package and give insurers flexibility in design, you don’t want them to have so much flexibility that they can “continue to compete based on risk-selection, rather than price and quality as intended by the ACA and what is critical for a better functioning health insurance market.” My post on that here.

During the interview, Ignagni was also asked about Wendell Potter’s new book criticizing the industry and its PR practices. Ignagni — who Potter describes in the book as an incredibly effective spin-master — said she hadn’t read the book and didn’t address Potter’s accusations.