By Luige del Puerto | Arizona Capitol Times
In a major victory for the Obama administration, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the Affordable Care Act allows federal exchanges to offer subsidies, thereby preserving the insurance coverage of roughly 6.4 million Americans, including 126,000 Arizonans.
In a 6-3 vote, the justices concluded that Congress intended the tax credits to be offered on both federal and state-established exchanges because without them, the federally-run insurance markets would plunge into a “death spiral,” a “calamitous result that Congress plainly meant to avoid.”
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the court’s opinion. He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy and the court’s four liberal justices.
“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts wrote. “If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”
Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, saying “we should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” referring to the two Supreme Court decisions in favor of the law.
President Barack Obama cast the Supreme Court ruling as a historic and emphatic declaration that the law has now been “woven into the fabric of America.”
“This is reality,” Obama said in a celebratory statement in the Rose Garden. “We can see how it is working.”
