socioeconomic level in this country to understand its future, its challenges, and its opportunities and why you need to know about india. how important india is to your economic future. christine? >> thanks, ali. health care reform is president obama's signature achievement, and at the heart of the president's health care reform law is the individual mandate, the requirement that most americans either purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. the vim mandate is designed to lower costs by spreading them across a larger pool of individuals. but after three days of supreme court arguments this week, it's pretty clear that the individual mandate is in jeopardy. and that could mean an end to the entire health reform law. candy crowley is the cnn's chief political correspondent and anchors "state of the union." the supreme court is expected to announce its decision in the summer. if it's overturned is it a fatal blow to his legacy or rally cry to the democrats he can ride out until november. >> i think it depends on which party spins it best, actually. i think those are the two scenarios. listen, in the short run, i think this is a blow to the president's signature issue of his first term. in the long run, it really does depend on how it gets spun and how people perceive it. is it a blow to president obama or is it a blow to republicans who by and large pushed this whole supreme court case and pushed it up to the high court? so, listen, we heard james carville say, i think this would be great. because we can just say, you don't have health insurance? go talk to the supreme court. go talk to justice scalia. so, again, the spin's already begun, and i can tell you better in august or september which party is winning and trying to sort of frame this issue in a way that helps them in november. >> we don't even have a decision yet. we have to wait for the decision and then we have to wait to see how it's going to be spun, and then we wait until november to see for sure, candy. you know, sanjay gupta is cnn's chief medical correspondent, host of sanjay gupta md, and a neurosurgeon, and a father. but he's here to talk about health insurance. around 30 million americans could get coverage under the law. it was meant to provide access to the health care system. what happens to the uninsured if this law is overturned? >> in many ways, it goes back to the way it was before, which is that people, depending on the reason they don't have health care insurance, maybe if they have a pre-existing condition or they simply can't afford it, they try and find it on the open market, they're not getting it through their job, obviously. it's a touch process and expensive and even some more expensive if you're already sick. but it's worth pointing out as well, christine, we're talking about the law being fully implemented in 2014. there are some things that have already been implemented. for example, no discrimination for children with pre-existing conditions. they can't be charged higher premiums for health insurance. if the whole law is scrapped, that would go away, so the premiums would go up. also, you know, a kid who is sick, you know, under the new law, if the law was to pass, there would be no caps, for example, on how much an insurance company would pay annually or over a lifetime. and that's implemented right now again for children. that would also go away. you know, there are people out there who can stay on their parent's plan as well until age 26. so that would go away. in some ways, it's not just either the law doesn't happen and we go back to square one, we would have to also scrap some of the things that have been in place over the last year. >> let's go to will kaine, he's a cnn contributor, and he has a number of jobs, and he's also a lawyer. will, put on your legal hat. last week you laid out the case as to why the individual mandate is unconstitutional. it's clearly in jeopardy, but what might it mean for the rest of the law? take a listen to justices scalia and ginsburg and see if you can figure out what the court might ultimately decide. >> my approach would say, if you take the heart out of this statute, the statute's gone. >> why should we say it's a choice between a wrecking operation, which is what you are requesting, or a salvage job. and the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything. >> so, will, can the rest of the law survive if the individual mandate, which is, i guess, essentially the glue to the whole thing, is struck down? >> that's a very, very tough question to answer. let me explain it this way, christine. this shows you a breakdown of the justices. over here you have what is commonly described as the liberal justices. that's just breyer, justice ginsburg, justice kagan, and justice sotomayor. everything we've heard from them suggests that they will uphold the individual mandate, while justices thomas, alito, and scalia made it sound like they will strike down the mandate. the big questions are roberts and kennedy. which way will they go? and on the issue of severability. if the mandate is struck down, will they strike down the entire 127-page bill? it's impossible to predict right now, but we did hear them say they want to seek judicial mode modesty. they donate kn't know the answe that. is it more modest for the supreme court to go through the 2,700 pages and analyze what is a constitutional and what is not. >> sanjay, can i ask you how disruptive this is in the medical profession for the watching and waiting and the waiting game about what's going to happen with this law? because doctors i talk to and hospitals i talk to are already implementing things to try to get ahead of new health care reform and what this new health care regime is going to look like. now there's this whole question mark on everything. >> yeah, you know, i think it's been sort of approached with a fair amount of caution. some of the things that are really specific to hospitals in terms of improving medical records, for example, reducing errors, starting to share outcome data with the entire country, these are very specific things that happen within hospitals, and some of that's, you know, under the affordable care act. but, you know, i think in terms of disruptions, i think people have been sort of, you know, cautiously awaiting to see how this all plays out. so i don't know how disruptive it will be. i think people really haven't, you know, implemented a lot of the changes on physician/patient relationship yet. >> yeah. i think you're right on that toop too. and some of the patient -- there was stimulus money for that too. so there's this other movement unrelated to health care reform that's also changing health care and sort of the delivery of health care the system overall. candy, i want to bring you in. i guess my question to you again is about the politicization -- is that the right word -- of the supreme court. this is a very big case and rarely have you seen so much political fire and brimstone. you had, you know, presidential candidates at the supreme court this week using it as a moment. >> sure, but you've also had, listen, every january when the roe v. wade anniversary comes up, i think on the 19th, somewhere around there, you also see this outside. we saw this in bush v. gore in 2000. so there are these -- by and large, the supreme court does a lot of things that changes lives, but it's these big things that always come to the forum and bring people to the steps of the courthouse. i will tell you, i think one of the applying issues that you will see coming out of this is what has always been a real key issues for republicans, and in large part, democrats as well, which is, we want to nominate a guy who will pick our kind of justices. believe it or not, on the campaign trail, the supreme court is a pretty big applause getter, particularly when you're in the republican party. because to them, it's always been, you know, right to life and that kind of thing. so i think this will sort of amp up the importance of the supreme court and who gets to nominate, because it is right on that cusp. so if you have a very controversial ruling, you're going to see a lot of talk about the nomination of the next supreme court justice and who should be able to do that. >> candy, sanjay, will, state right where you are. up next, if the supreme court strikes down the president's reform law, is there a backup plan in place? plus, ali's traveled across india. he'll tell us what he's learned and what you need to know. 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[ applause ] [ male announcer ] go online to reach every home, every address, every time with every door direct mail. health care costs are spiraling out of control for american individuals and businesses. in 2011, the cost of health care for a family of four under an employer plan was nearly $20,000, more than double what it was in 2002. sanjay, individual employees are being asked to shoulder a greater share of those rising costs. if the president's law is struck down, is there a plan "b" for limiting the burden of health care costs and rising health care costs? >> no, i don't think there is. i've asked that same question, by the way, and to be fair, you know, the whole notion of controlling costs as part of even, you know, this plan, you know, it was hard to parse out. i mean, no one's done a terrific job -- >> it's always about access to care. it was always about access to insurance. it was not as much about l lowering costs, other than it spread out the burden among so many people that that should at least slow the pace of health care cost job growth. >> exactly. and even that, i mean, if you look, if you sort of track health care costs over the last decade, we've had a slowdown in the increases year-to-year in health care costs, but it's still been, certainly, going up. and the plan didn't have a lot in terms of curbing that. and that was one of the criticisms as well. again, i don't know with regard to whether this law goes through or it doesn't or it goes through in part whether that will have a significant impact on cost. it will have a significant impact on individuals, as we talked about earlier. >> you know, it's been two years until that bill was signed into a law, rather, and yet, today only a quarter of americans would like to see the supreme court leave the law unchanged. this is according to a new cnn/orc poll. 43% would like some provisions overturned, 30% want to get rid some of the whole bill. will, health care costs are serious problem for millions of americans, as we know. if it's not the president's plan, then who is offering a solution? >> well, not very many people, and this is a very legitimate criticism of republicans. they're very good at criticizing the plan of the president's, but they haven't been very good at providing an alternative solution. i would suggest this. there's only really two ways to ever exert price controls, cost controls over health care. you either allow the market, through free market mechanisms that lower the prices for every other product we have in society to work its magic in the health care industry, or you empower the government to have a large enough influence over health care to put price controls over it. where we sit right now is in the middle, a place that does neither, and we have seen health care costs spiral upwards for years and years, and we will continue to. >> candy, rick santorum making the case for conservatives who oppose mitt romney on the issue of health care. listen. >> it became very clear to me that we were going to make a very, very serious mistake if he got the nomination. because he is uniquely disqualified to make the case against obama care. >> so, you know, mitt romney's been hearing about this, you know, how he was the architect, the pre-architect of obama care for so long. if the supreme court strikes down this law, does mitt romney earn a free pass because conservatives have now scored their big victory? >> no. simply because their argument is that the president's going to say, maybe the supreme court struck it down, but, boy, they had it in massachusetts too. so, lacook, mitt romney's probls with health care is part of larger problem about what's he for, what's he against? so i think those remain in place. i think the train's left the station in terms of whether or not that will stop him from becoming the nominee, but in terms of whether it will change anything for him in september should he become the nominee, i don't think it changes anything. he's still stuck with that overall perception, of whether it's health care or abortion or anything else, like where does he stand, so it's part of an overall package with romney. >> and speaking of sort of the politics or the politicization of the supreme court, you know, will was making a really interesting point about 2016. think ahead to where we are in the composition of the court, and whether a big issue like this is in the hands of a very different court. talk to me about that. >> candy pointed out that people talk about the president's power to appoint justices and how important that is. by 2016, justice ginsburg will be 83, justice scalia and kennedy will be 80, and breyer will be 78. that's potentially four justices late in life sitting on the bench or retiring from the bench and four potentials. >> a lot of people saying 2016 is going to be an amazingly different kind of political landscape than it is for president. candy, you're like, i'm too tired to even think about another political -- please, let me get through this one first! but when you're talking about the supreme court, these are the kinds of things you're talking about. i want to let sanjay wrap it up on the cost angle of this. a lot of people are asking me, doctors and patients and other journalists, what is all of this going to mean if this is overturned for my relationship with my doctor, right now? >> the interesting thing is, i think for a lot of people, you know, it may not dramatically change things for them. that was something that president obama talked about, you know, when he was first talking about health care. you know, if you have -- if you're insured, if you have a physician right now that you have a relationship, a lot of that should not change. so i think, you know, not having the law or not having the law in its entirety, for a lot of people, they may not notice a lot. a lot of companies, as you've mentioned, christine, have raised their premiums. in sort of anticipation of the affordable care act going through. so i don't know whether -- i doubt those premiums will sort of revert back to what they were, whether they're in the form of higher co-pays or higher fees or different insurance plans. one thing i want to say really quick, to something candy was talking about earlier. i interviewed governor romney about this a couple years ago, specifically, and asked him about the plan in massachusetts, the national plan. and one of the points i think you're going to hear from him more and one of the points he made to me was, laook, what happened in massachusetts, very effective. 98% of that state is insured now, and people in the medical community, patients, it's very popular. what i think he says often, and i think you'll hear more is, look, every state is different. massachusetts is different than alabama, which is different than texas, and therefore, you know, to have health care plans at a national level that impact states so differently, that have different needs, is part of the reason, you know, he advocates these sorts of plans being at the state level. i don't know where that conversation goes from here, but, obviously, it's going to be a big, big discussion topic if he's the nominee. >> all right. dr. sanjay gupta, will cain, candy crowley, have a great weekend, everybody. >> you too. up next on "your $$$$$," just because you're hearing the word "recovery" doesn't mean you're seeing one. is the middle class missing out? and the middle class may be taking a hit in the u.s., but it is growing in india. ali takes a look at that. there's more whole grain than any other ingredient. that's why it's listed first. get more whole grain than any other ingredient... just look for the white check. [ male announcer ] brake problems? stop in to meineke today for a free brake inspection and you'll say... my money. my choice. my meineke. as investors rejoice, millions of americans are asking, where is my recovery? take a look at the total number of private sector jobs versus the performance of the s&p 500 over the past ten years. looks pretty similar, right, including the big drop during the recession. this is the s&p 500, these are the number of people working. but the recovery bounce are where you see the major difference. after hitting a low of 666 in march 2009, the s&p is hovering around 1,400 today. and those the jobs picture is improving, the gains there are modest. they actually happened a little later than the company stock market recovery, and they've been shallower, prompting federal reserve chairman ben bernanke this week to remind everyone that the private sector remains 5 million jobs below its previous peak. rah rahna and stephen moore. bob, the economy is adding jobs. we can see that from those charts. is this a statistical jobs recovery or proof that life is improving for anybody? >> there is a recovery in jobs. we're getting a couple hundred thousand jobs. a little more a month. but two quick points. one, we were in such a deep hole that that is not really enough to help us climb out of the hole. and two, the quality of the jobs. the quality of jobs are not great. a lot of the jobs that are being created are part-time or low-wage or whatever, you know, so those are two of the reasons why people don't feel they're in a recovery. >> rahna, let's talk more about feelings. in september, 10% of americans described economic conditions as good if that number has risen steadily. today, you've got three in ten americans who say things are going well. it's a consumer-driven economy, so the economy recover without th