This morning the US Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Health Care (ACA) plan derisively referred to as ‘Obamacare’ by conservative critics. For the second time in three years, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Court’s liberal Justices in upholding the ACA. The 6-3 decision effectively upheld the federal tax credits for eligible Americans living not only in states with their own exchanges but also in the 34 states with federal exchanges.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for himself, Justice Anthony Kennedy and the four liberal justices. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent, joined by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”
In a dissent, Scalia said “we should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” referring to the two times the Court has saved the law.
The ruling staved off a major political showdown and what would have been a mad scramble in some states to set up their own health care exchanges to keep millions from losing healthcare coverage.
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