The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act and ruled the law’s most controversial portion, the individual mandate, unconstitutional. The Obama administration created the individual mandate as a fine to be imposed on individuals who didn’t have health insurance. The court held this requirement unconstitutional, but artfully contended that the government has the power to tax individuals. In that regard, the mandate survives 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,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
The court had concerns with Medicaid expansion.
The ruling may give more leeway to states that don’t want to cooperate with the law by letting them avoid punishment for refusing to expand Medicaid.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Medicaid portion “violates the Constitution by threatening existing Medicaid funding.” He said the remedy for the violation was to preclude the federal government from imposing a sanction on states that decline to accept an expansion of Medicaid under the law’s provisions. But he said that remedy “does not require striking down other portions” of the law.
Earlier this year, Texas received federal permission to expand its existing risk-based Medicaid managed care program.
