Mary Landrieu proposes legislation to repeal Obamacare

The politics of this are going to be problematic. Mary might be in real trouble.

"If what she's saying is you can keep your health plan forever if you like it, that basically repeals the market reforms," Jost said. "You're continuing to allow people to buy a defective product. You're segmenting the risk pool again with respect for coverage. Does that mean you can say you'll cover physical health without mental health? Does that mean you don't have to cover maternity coverage? ... The whole idea here is we're trying to create a community -- a system based on mutual aid rather than everybody paying for exactly the care that they are likely to need in the next few moments."

Landrieu's plan could also disrupt the premiums set by insurers because a chunk of their expected customers would no longer be enrolling in the marketplaces. "Mechanically that's very difficult," Jost said. "It basically denies people the community-rating advantages that were the whole reason -- or one of the reasons -- for the law in the first place. ... So you're just moving the problem down the road a bit, but in the meantime it really messes over the insurance companies because they've written their premiums based on knowing who their pool would be, and that's based on knowing what sorts of people would sign up early on."