WASHINGTON â€" Led by a chief justice who some conservatives immediately branded a turncoat, the Supreme Court upheld most of President Obama's healthcare law Thursday, resolving a high-stakes constitutional clash not seen in decades and handing Obama a victory that surprised many in Washington.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.and the four liberal justices joined to uphold the Democrats' most ambitious social legislation in a generation.
The unpopular requirement that everyone buy health insurance or pay a penalty â€" likened by detractors to a rule that everyone purchase broccoli â€" was unconstitutional as a mandate, Roberts said, but valid as long as it was simply considered a tax.
"We do not consider whether the act embodies sound policies," wrote Roberts, a conservative appointed to the court by PresidentGeorge W. Bushin 2005. "That judgment is entrusted to the nation's elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions."
Obama, who had staked the success of his presidency on passage of the law, initially thought he had lost when Fox News and CNN incorrectly reported the mandate had been struck down. But after he retreated to his offices to ponder his defeat, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler walked in to give him the thumbs-up.
"First, there were dark clouds," one aide said, "and then there was joy."
Obama's first call was to Solicitor Gen. Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who had insisted on presenting the tax argument to the justices.
Later the president went before television cameras to pronounce the ruling "a victory for people all over this country whose lives will be more secure because of this law and the Supreme Court's decision to uphold it."
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who also awaited the court's decision in Washington, used the ruling as a call to arms.
"Our mission is clear. If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we are going to have to replace President Obama. My mission is to make sure we do exactly that," Romney said, standing behind a lectern decorated with a sign that said, "Repeal and Replace Obamacare."
But the decision was not a total victory for the administration. One part of the law would greatly expand Medicaid to cover an additional 17 million low-income people. Although Washington would pay nearly all the extra cost, states ultimately would pay a small portion of the bill.
Roberts said the required expansion of Medicaid would violate the rights of states by threatening them with the loss of all their Medicaid money if they refus ed.
"The states are given no choice in this case," Roberts wrote, likening the requirement to "a gun to the head."
Instead, Roberts wrote, states must be given the right to opt out of expanded coverage. That raises the likelihood of a wide gap in coverage between states with Democratic majorities, which are already eager to cover more residents under Medicaid, and conservative states, which are likely to say no, even if it means turning down large amounts of federal money. Already on Thursday, some Republican governors were saying they would opt out.
Overall, the new law, which already is being phased in, will require insurers to offer coverage to all, even those who have serious diseases. And it will require those who can afford it to carry "minimum" coverage. Republican state officials sued to strike down the law before it could take full effect, arguing this insurance "mandate" amounted to an unprecedented and unconstitutional overreach by the Democrats.
The chief justice, defying many predictions, found a way to uphold the law in an opinion that steered something of a middle course.
On the one hand, Roberts agreed with the law's conservative challengers who said Congress did not have the power to compel the purchase of a private product such as health insurance.
But in practice, the only penalty the law provides for not complying is an extra charge on income tax returns beginning in 2015 for those who choose not to have insurance coverage.
And that is constitutional, Roberts said.
"The federal government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance," he wrote in the majority opinion. "The federal government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance."
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