WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has upheld the individual insurance requirement at the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
The court voted 5-4 in favor of the reform on Thursday and handed Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in requiring most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty.
Document set
U.S. Supreme Court ruling on health-care law
The federal health care law in Arkansas
NUMBER OF UNINSURED: 539,000 state residents are uninsured, or about 19 percent.
WHERE THE STATE STANDS NOW: Arkansas decided on a federal-state partnership for its online health insurance marketplace. Legislators blocked a bill by which the state would have created its own health insurance exchange but have since accepted a grant that will allow it to at least have a role in the federally-created exchange.
Local reactions
- http://www.arkansas…"> Reactions to health-care decision mixed in Little Rock
- http://www.arkansas…">State, local politicians react to health care reform law
The decision means the historic overhaul will continue to go into effect over the next several years, affecting the way that countless Americans receive and pay for their personal medical care.
Chief Justice John Roberts announced the court’s judgment that allows the law to go forward with its aim of covering more than 30 million uninsured Americans.
The justices rejected two of the administration’s three arguments in support of the insurance requirement. But the court said the mandate can be construed as a tax. “Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness,” Roberts said.
The court found problems with the law’s expansion of Medicaid, but even there said the expansion could proceed as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states’ entire Medicaid allotment if they don’t take part in the law’s extension.
The court’s four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined Roberts in the outcome.
Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
“The act before us here exceeds federal power both in mandating the purchase of health insurance and in denying non-consenting states all Medicaid funding,” the dissenters said in a joint statement.
The case began almost as soon as Obama signed the law on March 23, 2010. Even before the day was out, Florida and 12 states filed the lawsuit that ended up at the Supreme Court. Another 13 states later joined in later.
The law was designed to cover an additional 30 million Americans with health insurance.
The heart of the challenge was the claim that Congress could not force people to buy a product — health insurance.
The administration advanced several arguments in defense of Congress' authority to require health insurance, including that it falls under the power to regulate interstate commerce.
The government also argued that the insurance requirement was necessary to make effective two other undoubtedly constitutional provisions: the requirements that insurers accept people regardless of existing health problems and limit what they charge older, sicker people.
The administration also said that even if the court rejected the first two arguments, the insurance requirement and penalty are constitutional as an exercise of Congress' power to enact taxes. The penalty assessed for not buying insurance functions like a tax, the government said.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
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