Under the PPACA health care reform law, nearly 62,000 other "uninsurable patients are getting coverage through a little-known program for people who have been turned away by insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions.

"Without it, I would have been dead on March 2," Kathy Watson a Florida resident battling cancer said of the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, known as PCIP. That's when she was hospitalized for a life-threatening respiratory infection.

It's not clear how the Supreme Court will rule on Obama's law, but Watson's case illustrates the potential impact of tying everything in the far-reaching legislation to the fate of one provision, the unprecedented requirement that most Americans carry health insurance.

p>The law's opponents say if that insurance mandate is found to be unconstitutional, the rest of the law should also go, since courts should not be picking and choosing policy. The administration defends the insurance requirement but says if the court decides to overturn it, most of the rest of the law should stay.

State officials who administer the federal pre-existing condition plan in 27 states are trying to make fallback arrangements in case the law is invalidated and coverage suddenly terminates.

"Some of these individuals are critically ill and are being treated for very serious illnesses, whether it be cancer or HIV-AIDS, and we feel a responsibility to them to do what we can to see they don't lose access," said Amie Goldman to the Washington Post, who oversees PCIP in Wisconsin.

Federal officials who administer the plan in the remaining 23 states and Washington, D.C., remain mum on what might happen there if the law is overturned.

If the law is struck down there will be a huge outcry to shore up the PCIP, but do you think Congress will act to secure it?

Homeowners insurance premiums went up 19 percent on average nationwide, according to a report from an online insurance provider.

Homeinsurance.com, as reported in the Insurance Journal, said the typical premium for a new policy in December 2011 was $810 nationwide, up from $682 in January 2011.

The company said its quarterly RateReport data represents approximately 15,000 policies sold across the United States with various carriers including Travelers, Safeco, The Hartford, and ASI/Ark Royal.

RateReport shows that on a nationwide basis, homeowners are paying, on average, $128 more per year for new home insurance than they were at the beginning of the year.

Premium increases were more dramatic in some states than others, including Mississippi, Montana and New Mexico where new policies in December 2011 were seeing 29-39 percent higher premiums than those sold in January 2011. The increases make sens in Mississppi which saw devastating tornados in 2011. Why are rates up so dramatically in Montana and New Mexico? Readers.... any thoughts?

There were also spots with lower rates towards the end of 2011 including Washington D.C., where homeowners were paying about 7 percent less for new policies. Also new policies sold in December 2011 in Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and California decreased in price as compared to earlier in the year when they were 1 to 3 percent higher.

In a related note there's also news that Congress may extend the NFIP for one month to the end of June while they work out a long-term fix.

Also, have you signed up yet to receive my free weekly industry newsletter?

A new report on health care costs for the typical family of four are projected to reach $20,728 this year, a 6.9% increase from last year, according to the Milliman Medical Index as reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

In an earlier post today here I cited the opinion of Howard Dean that health care costs should have been a higher priority under ObamaCare than the individual mandate.

The index tracks the average health care costs for a typical American family of four insured through the most common health plan offered by employers.

The 6.9% increase projected for this year is the lowest in the 10 years of this study, according to Milliman, an actuarial and consulting firm with an office in Milwaukee. At the same time, the total dollar increase is the largest in that time period.

The Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation at the consumer level, increased 2.3% over the last 12 months, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.

"This helps illustrate the challenge of controlling health care costs," Lorraine Mayne, a Milliman principal and consulting actuary, said in a news release. "When the total cost is already so high, even slower rate of growth has a serious impact on family budgets."

Former New Hampshire Gov. Howard Dean recently told a crowd of brokers--who had slammed the former presidential candidate's position on health care--that the individual mandate provision is "one of the very large blunders" of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and predicted the Supreme Court will rule it unconstitutional.

"It was never necessary in the president's bill; they should have never put it in," Dean told attendees at the Benefits Selling Expo in San Antonio, Texas.

But he's unsure what will happen because court lawyers made a brilliant case trying to convince the justices that without the mandate, the bill will fall apart.

Still, Dean said he expects the rest of the bill will remain intact as the court will be "very reluctant" to get rid of all of it.

Despite Dean's history of support of universal health care, he said he wasn't "a terribly big supporter of the president's health reform bill. But we have what we have." His lack of support for the PPACA is due to a lack of cost control in the bill.

The entire incentive in this system is to spend as much as you possibly can, and that's why health care cannot continue as it is. The solution? Pay by the patient and not by the procedure, Dean said.