Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Obama on Health Care
The Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 in favor of the Obama administration on the Affordable Care Act, upholding the constitutionality of the law's individual mandate as a tax. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined the court's liberal bloc. "The bottom line," SCOTUSBlog writes, is that "the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government's power to terminate states' Medicaid funds is narrowly read. [...] Chief Justice Roberts' vote saved the ACA." CNN initially, and hilariously, reported incorrectly that the mandate had been struck down, briefly turning Twitter into an entertaining website.
Crowd outside SCOTUS is confused. Both sides cheering.
— Emily Miller (@EmilyMiller) June 28, 2012
This ruling goes against the wishes of the belly dancers (pictured):
One of the two [belly] dancers, Angela Petry, 44, of Berkeley Springs, W.Va., said they were hoping the court struck down the individual mandate and Congress immediately replaces it with a single-payer system. "It's what all the other industrialized nations have," Ms. Petry said.
Justice Kennedy authored the dissent, which reportedly begins: "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."