Entire ACA upheld by Supreme Court

[Danzig]

unreal, but this is what caught my eye:


But in a major victory for the states who challenged the law, the court said that the Obama administration cannot coerce states to go along with the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people.

The financial pressure which the federal government puts on the states in the expansion of Medicaid “is a gun to the head,” Roberts wrote.

“A State that opts out of the Affordable Care Act’s expansion in health care coverage thus stands to lose not merely ‘a relatively small percentage’ of its existing Medicaid funding, but all of it,” Roberts said.

Congress cannot “penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding,” Roberts said.

The Medicaid provision is projected to add nearly 30 million more people to the insurance program for low-income Americans -- but the court’s decision left states free to opt out of the expansion if they choose.


.....i wonder if states will opt out. if so, how many? and what will that mean if too many opt out? what will that do to the ACA (and this part of the ruling gives lie to the title of the thread btw)?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

.....i wonder if states will opt out. if so, how many? and what will that mean if too many opt out? what will that do to the ACA (and this part of the ruling gives lie to the title of the thread btw)?

Such a shame you have me on invisible. Both HiI'mGod and I posted on that already. For the third time in the thread:

From ScotusBlog:

Amy Howe: In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn't comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.