In a huge win for President Obama, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning ruled 5-4 in favor of the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare,” a huge upset from what most political and legal “experts” had been saying and writing about for months.
The Court ruled on four questions: whether it was within Congress’ constitutional powers to impose an “individual mandate” to purchase health insurance; whether all or any additional parts of the law must be struck down if the mandate is rejected; whether an expansion of Medicaid was unduly coercive on the states; and whether all of those questions can even be reviewed before the mandate takes effect.
The Court ruled in favor of the Obama administration on three of the four: On the Medicaid question, the judges ruled that the expansion of Medicaid can move forward, but not its provision that threatens states with the loss of their existing Medicaid funding if the states declined to comply with the expansion.
With the court generally split and Justice Anthony Kennedy considered the swing vote, another surprise was that it was Chief Justice John Roberts, and not Kennedy, who was the swing vote in favor of supporting the Affordable Care Act.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2012.
