Buffalo, NY (WBEN) America expects to hear Thursday from the Supreme Court on the health care reform law. Two presidents of the Erie County Medical Society, one current, one past, give their thoughts on what they think the court will rule.

The current president, Dr. Raymond Paolini, predicts the high court will overturn the individual mandate but leave everything else intact. "The question that remains is how will the law go forward if the individual mandate is struck down, because there's no justification for people to buy health insurance if there's no stick if you will," says Paolini.

Paolini says there were a number of potential flaws in the way the law was written, "it's like hodgepodge. The way it's funded, how they expand Medicaid, the individual mandate some people have. To me, and a lot of physicians agree, it had so many bad aspects, they really should start all over, and start with tort reform, liability reform and getting the cost of health care reform down."

Paolini says the idea of getting more people insured is a noble cause, but the concern is what's the best way to do it.

Past President Dr. Mark Lema says his gut feeling is the court will uphold it. "If they do, it'll be the first time in American history residents have had to pay for something to live in America," says Lema.

Lema says the issue at hand really is what is health care reform. "It should be how we approach treating crippling disability and helping people reduce these risks so they don't get sick in the first place," says Lema. He says health care reform has taken a poliiical life of its own, "where it's become a form of health care rationing to reduce the overall cost of health care, when people care more than money but money is not irrelevant."

Lema says the law does have some concerns including a constitutional issue of a central government mandating how states deal with health care. "Who's going to pay for it? There are a lot of states that don't have the same issues," mentions Lema.