Affordable Care Act upheld

The coverage is everywhere by now, but for readers of the blog, a quick summary of the major points in today's decision:

1. The ACA's individual mandate is constitutional under Congress's taxing power and therefore upheld. (Five justices agree that the the commerce power does not sustain the mandate, but there is no one opinion for this group.)

2. The ACA's expansion of Medicaid eligibility impermissibly coerces states by threatening to withhold all Medicaid funding (not just funding for the expansion) if the states do not comply. But this problem is remedied by limiting the penalty to the withdrawal of funding for the expansion only (as opposed to all Medicaid funding).

3. No other provision of the ACA is affected.

So, overall, the ACA is upheld, by a 5-4 vote (Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan). The dissenters (Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito) would have thrown the entire law out.