WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld most of President Obama’s health care overhaul law, saying it was authorized by Congress’s power to levy taxes. The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief
Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s four more liberal members.
The decision was a victory for President Obama and Congressional Democrats, affirming the central legislative pillar of Mr. Obama’s presidency. The ruling upheld the individual mandate requiring nearly all Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty.
“The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain in­dividuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Be­cause the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness.”
The justices rejected the argument that the administration had pressed most vigorously in support of the law, that its individual mandate was justified by Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. The vote was again 5 to 4, but here Chief Justice Roberts was joined by the court’s four more conservative members.
The court did substantially limit a major piece of the law, one that expanded Medicaid, the joint federal-state program that provides health care to poor and disabled people. Seven justices agreed that Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority by coercing states into participating in the expansion by threatening them with the loss of existing federal payments.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, frequently the swing vote, joined three more conservative members in an unusual jointly written dissent. He read from the bench that the minority viewed the law as “invalid in its entirety” and that the court’s intrepretation “amounts to a vast judicial overreaching.”
The court’s ruling, seen as one of the most significant in decades, is a crucial milestone for the law, allowing almost all of its far-reaching changes to roll forward. Several of its notable provisions have already been put in place in the past two years, and more are imminent. Ultimately, it is intended to end the United States’ status as the only rich country with large numbers of uninsured people, by expanding both the private market and Medicaid.
President Obama spoke from the White House shortly after the decision was handed down. “Whatever the politics, today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives are more secure because of this law,” he said.
Republicans, who have made repeal of the law a priority, once again bashed the measure.
“Obamacare was bad policy yesterday; it’s bad policy today,” said Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, in remarks before the Capitol building. “Obamacare was bad law yesterday; it’s bad law today.”
Although many conservatives were stung that the law will stand, the court’s ruling did have the potential to restrain Congress in the longer term. The restriction of the Medicaid expansion could limit the federal government’s ability to alter other federally financed state programs.
The commerce clause ruling revised the constitutional structure, handing a victory to conservative legal scholars who say Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce must have defined limits. New challenges to federal laws on commerce clause grounds are likely to follow.
In the opinion, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the decision offers no endorsement of the law’s wisdom, and that letting it survive reflects “a general reticence to invalidate the acts of the nation’s elected leaders.”
“It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices,” he wrote.
The law was challenged by 26 states, with the individual mandate the most contested issue.