Well... holy wow. Healthcare Bill UpheldFollow

The Supreme Court upheld the health care law’s individual mandate Thursday, ruling that Congress did not overstep its power by requiring nearly all Americans to buy health insurance.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court’s four liberal justices in the ruling, which says Congress had the authority for the mandate under Congress’s taxing power.

The ruling is a surprise victory for the Obama administration, which faced tough questions from the court during the oral arguments in March.

...authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined in by Justices Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

The Supreme Court has upheld President Obama’s health care reform law in its entirety. Continue to check this post for up-to-the-minute information on the opinion and some of the initial analysis, and post your thoughts in the comments.

SCOTUSblog is reporting that the individual mandate has been upheld as a constitutional “tax,” with Chief Justice Roberts siding with the Court’s four liberal Justices in a 5 to 4 decision. Ezra Klein included this as the fourth way the Court could “split the difference” in its ruling, finding that the Commerce Clause is not sufficient for the mandate to be held constitutional.

The provisions expanding Medicaid have been limited, but remain largely intact, with the Court ruling that the federal government cannot withhold the funds that the states would have received without the law’s expansion.

Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog’s bottom line: “the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government’s power to terminate states’ Medicaid funds is narrowly read.”

Justice Kennedy’s dissent indicates that the four Justices in the minority wanted to invalidate the entire law.

This shall be interesting.. FOX news shall be even more interesting... lol

From what I'm hearing from news outlets, the White House's team got this through by arguing that the mandate was a tax, not a requirement for somebody to buy healthcare. Which makes sense, as the Constitution grants Congress the almost unlimited power to tax the public.

In other news, the Stolen Valor law criminalizing lying about your military service/awards was struck down as unconstitutional. Also, no one will give a shit about the Holder contempt vote scheduled for today.

No Scalia narrative dissent :(.

Welcome to the dark side, Chief Roberts. Good to have a 50 year old liberal Chief Justice....

One is them trying to knock down a huge success, the other is proof of failure.

Former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer tweets, "I miss Justice Harriet Miers." Miers was the White House counsel Bush nominated to the Supreme Court who withdrew her nomination after outrage that she was unqualified. Bush nominated Chief Justice John Roberts instead.

Really, really odd that Roberts voted for & Kennedy dissented.

Some people are saying he voted in favor because he thought Kennedy was going to and if it was going to pass anyway, he wanted to be on the "winning side" so he could write a narrowly contrued decision.

before they all head to the Jersey Shore.