At the very end of the nearly two hour long oral argument today, Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod (a George W. Bush appointee) asked the attorney for the State of California, the lead defendant intervenor state, an intriguing question. She asked him whether the State would object to a Fifth Circuit ruling strikng down the individual mandate, which has been zeroed out, but leaving the remainder of the Affordable Care Act in force. California’s attorney replied the State would have no issue with that outcome because that is the outcome that the 2017 Congress intended when it passed the tax law zeroing out that mandate. That strikes the FEHBlog to be the likely outcome here.