High Court Rules: Health Care Law Stands

(Newsroom America) – In a much-anticipated ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that much of President Obama's signature healthcare law will stand.

Specifically, the high court upheld the most controversial part of the law - the individual mandate, which will require most Americans to purchase health care insurance beginning in 2014. The court's majority said the mandate is allowable under Congress' authority to tax.

That finding left many legal scholars shaking their head, since neither side in the case had argued that the mandate was a tax.

In that vein, President Obama himself in 2009 adamantly denied the mandate was a tax in an ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos.

"...[F]or us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase," Obama said then.

That wasn't the only surprise in the closely watched and over-analyzed ruling.

In writing the majority 5-4 opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberal minority. Most seasoned court watchers expected Justice Anthony Kennedy to be the swing vote, but he sided with the court's conservative wing.

The Washington Post reported that the court examined four basic questions: whether it was within Congress’s constitutional powers to impose an “individual mandate” to purchase health insurance; whether all or any additional parts of the law must be struck down if the mandate is rejected; whether an expansion of Medicaid was unduly coercive on the states and whether all of those questions can even be reviewed before the mandate takes effect.

The most contentious of them was the individual mandate, but many analysts have said that equally important in terms of impact was the Medicaid question. On the latter issue, the court said the provision to expand Medicaid can move ahead, but not the provision which says states can lose their Medicaid funding if they refuse to comply with the expansion.

That was unexpected, as every lower court has upheld the constitutionality of the provision and its penalty.

The court rejected the government's assertion that it could impose the mandate under authority of the so-called commerce clause, but instead ruled that that Congress nevertheless “has the power to impose” the individual mandate under its taxing authority.

The provision “need not be read to do more than impose a tax,” the opinion said. “This is sufficient to sustain it.”

Republicans, including GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney, used the ruling as a rallying cry for November.

"The president’s health care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire. Today’s ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety," said House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio.

"What Americans want is a common-sense, step-by-step approach to health care reform that will protect Americans’ access to the care they need, from the doctor they choose, at a lower cost," he said. "Republicans stand ready to work with a president who will listen to the people and will not repeat the mistakes that gave our country ObamaCare."

Earlier in the week at a political rally in Salem, Va., Romney vowed to kill the law if it stood.

"If it is deemed to stand, then I’ll tell you one thing: We’re going to have to have a president, and I’m that one, that’s going to get rid of Obamacare. We’re going to stop it on Day 1," he said.

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