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Kaiser Health News: High Court Upholds Health Law Subsidies

The Affordable Care Act made it through its second do-or-die Supreme Court test in three years, raising odds for its survival but by no means ending the legal and political assaults on it five years after it became law. The 6-3 ruling, a major win for the White House, stopped a challenge that would have erased tax-credit subsidies in at least 34 states for individuals and families buying insurance through the federal government’s online marketplace. Such a result would have made coverage unaffordable for millions and created price spirals for those who kept their policies, many experts predicted. (Hancock, 6/25)

The case turned on whether the law’s wording allowed for federal subsidies to help lower-income Americans nationwide buy insurance. A contrary ruling could have stripped coverage from millions by making their plans too costly. And it would have thrown the insurance and medical industries into turmoil as the 2016 presidential race heats up. Insurance and hospital businesses, which were preparing for disruptions to the health-care system if the government lost, breathed a sigh of relief and stocks in the companies rose. (Bravin and Radnofsky, 6/25)

The ruling is a crucial win for the Democratic White House, now that Republicans control the House and Senate. Had the high court ruled for the conservative challengers, it would have put the fate of the law in the hands of GOP leaders on Capitol Hill. (Savage, 6/25)

A ruling against the Obama administration would have eliminated the subsidies in the 34 states that refused to set up an insurance exchange — including pivotal 2016 presidential battlegrounds such as Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio. The Urban Institute estimated that more than 8.2 million people would be uninsured as a result, which could have dramatically destabilized insurance markets. (Haberkorn and Gerstein, 6/25)

The Supreme Court rescued President Obama's health care law on Thursday for the second time in three years, rejecting a conservative challenge to the law's financial structure that could have proved fatal. ... The high court's action virtually guarantees that Obama will leave office in January 2017 with his signature domestic policy achievement in place. (Wolf and Heath, 6/25)

The Supreme Court handed President Obama a major victory Thursday, rejecting a conservative bid to undermine a key element of the Affordable Care Act and saying critics seized on an “implausible’’ argument. (Jan, 6/25)

In dissent on Thursday, Justice Antonin Scalia called the majority’s reasoning “quite absurd” and “interpretive jiggery-pokery.” He announced his dissent from the bench, a sign of bitter disagreement. His summary was laced with notes of incredulity and sarcasm, sometimes drawing amused murmurs in the courtroom as he described the “interpretive somersaults” he said the majority had performed to reach the decision. (Liptak, 6/25)

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a key part of the Affordable Care Act that provides health insurance subsidies to all qualifying Americans, awarding a major victory to President Obama and validating his most prized domestic achievement. ... Joining the chief justice in the majority were Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Opposing the decision were Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.(Barnes, 6/25)

The latest and possibly the last serious effort to cripple Obamacare through the courts has just failed. On Thursday, for the second time in three years, the Supreme Court rejected a major lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act -- thereby preserving the largest expansion in health coverage since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid half a century ago. (Cohn & Young, 6/25)