1.  You go from a situation in which 1/5 of the population isn't covered by insurance to a system where 1/20th of the population isn't covered.  That seems pretty good to me.

The constitutionality argument I very little  sympathy for.  It isn't that you're making it illegal to not own health insurance.  Nobody is going to put you in handcuffs and lock you away.  You're simply taxing people differently based on whether they purchase insurance or not. 

2.  Here is Krugman's description of the death spiral.  Basically, as insurance premiums increase young healthy individuals drop out and decide to risk it without insurance.  This means the pool of people who still do own insurance are on average sicker and therefore more expensive so the insurance company must raise premiums again.  When that happens more people will decide to forgo insurance making the risk pool even costlier forcing another increase in premiums.  This cycle feeds on itself until premiums are so high that very few people purchase insurance.  This is why the individual (non-group) market for insurance is practically non-existent. 

The plan was proposed by liberal economists and adopted by all of the Democratic presidential candidates during the primaries.

3.   I don't feel like getting into this.  Follow Hamsher's link to the CBO on premiums.  This is an analysis of the Senate bill.

4.   Go to that calculator and plug in the income that Hamsher uses.  You could probably use many other sources to find out how much a family of four pays for insurance on average.  Do you doubt that it isn't above $6,000 per year?  Most families are "forced" to purchase insurance currently either through their employer or for the simple reason that they can not afford to get sick if they don't have insurance. 

5.  The question isn't whether MA is perfect, but is it better than the rest of the United States. 

6.  You're right.  It's not.  But in my opinion it is a needed reform in the way the system works if we're going to have a private market health insurance system that works.