We've just witnessed a milestone in the history of the SupremeCourt. For six hours over the course of three days, lawyers arguedover the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, whileprotestors, thrill seekers and political candidates mingled on thesteps outside. The court hasn't afforded a case this much of itsprecious time since it considered the Voting Rights Act back in1966.

While this isn't Marbury v. Madison or even Brownv. Board of Education, it's certainly on par with a Roe v.Wade or a Bush v. Gore. Cases like these come alongabout once in a decade, and some—like this one—help define us as ademocracy still struggling with growing pains. And come June, we'llfind out how this one turned out and move on from there.

(And, yes, we will move on no matter how this turns out.)

We've gone over the wealth of options the court has at itsdisposal, but one outcome in particular emerges as a doomsdayscenario, and while it's as unlikely as it would be devastating,there remains the possibility that the court will throw out themandate while keeping the rest of the legislation intact.

Of course, we all know how bad this would be, but I'm notaltogether sure the mainstream media—and by extension the votingpublic—have a clue. And between you and me, the latest estimatespredicting anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent premium jumps areconservative at best.

In a nutshell, people hate the mandate, but love the very thingsthat make it necessary, such as raising the age of dependentcoverage and doing away with pre-existing condition clauses forcarriers. A recent Kaiser study pointed to this, revealing roughly52 percent of Americans expected the court to throw out themandate—as if it were some minor annoyance and not the lynchpin ofthe entire 1,200-page law.

And this speaks to only one facet of the general public'signorance when it comes to the entire health insurance business. Itboils down to what insurance is, at its most basic, and that'ssomething we all take for granted on a daily basis.

“You get 10 people to put $100 in a pool on the first of themonth and that's what you have to spend on medical care thatmonth—for all 10 people. After that's gone, you have to wait untilnext month.”

This is what a frustrated broker told me last week. He couldn'tunderstand why some carrier with a huge marketing budget couldn'tput out an educational video or even a campaign-style ad to remindeveryone what insurance is. The resources are finite—whether we'retalking about the pool of funds or the number of serviceproviders—so why do we as consumers expect infinite care?