I agree that the power to levy a tax gives Congress the authority to require a penalty payment from any individual who does not pay for health insurance. I find the Supreme Court's logic to make sense, as it has been summarized. (I have not read the full 193-page decision!)

I am so happy!!!!

Why would the Patch, what is propourted to be an independent and impartial news outlet, title their poll with OBAMACARE? We all know who those "some people" are. Are you now an outlet for those "some people"??

Very disappointed in the decision. SCOTUS has decided that there are no limits to federal power as long as it's stated as a tax.

Shameful.

I thought the great obama said it wasn't a tax! Get ready for the greedy Dems to tax the heck out of us now!

It's Romney Care

It was the right decision to make, and I commend Roberts for couching the decision in language that Tea Partiers can understand (namely, the Constitution gives Congress the authority to do this).

I do subscribe to the analysis, however, that Roberts voted the way he did in order to give more credence to multiple conservative decisions that he will make on future cases involving civil rights, corporate power etc.

Don't we all know by now....Obama is a Liar.

And as Romney said, it assures individual responsibility. I say nothing is more American that this supposition. Thank you Mitt for creating this bill that has proven to vastly expand access to good health care for those in Massachusetts! To the Republicans, take solace - if you ever mingle with the un-washed (that is if you take the Metro), you will now be less likely to catch a cold from an uninsured rider, and therefore collectively, on the whole we will be a more productive society; and we will all gain by being a healthier society!!! Hooray for Romney, and Obama!!!

It's past time we joined the rest of the civilized world and acknowledged that health care is a human right.

Everyone is required to have car insurance and other forms of insurance, why not health care. At least those with pre existing conditions cannot be denied coverage. i know quite of number of individuals who have preexisting conditions who have been DENIED insurance by all companies.

OMG! this is the largest tax increase in the history of the world.

(I confess I haven't read the 193 page ruling yet). First and foremost, no one has to buy car insurance unless you drive. The purpose is your potential financial obligation to someone else if you injure someone or destroy property. But you don't have to buy car insurance. One could extrapolate that argument to health insurance however at present, not everyone wants to buy or needs health insurance(yes, yes, I know, one may at some point). But the more fundamental issue is that now the federal govt can compel you to buy something that you may not want or need and claim its a tax. That means the govt can make you spend your funds on anything it wants to(no, I'm not going to make the broccoli argument) and spin it so its called a tax. Remember, theres NO LIMIT on the funds the govt can appropriate from you for whatever it wants. This is just the most recent shot across the bow. And finally for those who feel medical care is a right, that makes it an obligation for someone else to provide it. The more rights that we mandate(especially those that cost money) means the more funds we need to spend to support those rights, which means the more funds the govt needs to "distribute" to support those rights; guess where those funds come from. This is in essence the shallow and slippery slide to socialism(the nanny state, call it whatever you like). One need look no further than the EU to see our future.

The Dodd comment misses the point: one is compelled to so something based on a calculation of the pain or discomfort of not doing it: if the pain/discomfort of inaction is greater than action, then one is compelled to act. This is a calculation we all make every day of our lives, w/o even thinking about it. If the govt can make the "tax" so high that we're forced to action. Hence one is indeed compelled to act even if one does not wish to do so. To think the govt does not compel us to or otherwise is naive in the extreme; just think IRS(amongst other "enforcement" govt entities, thats why its called enforcement!).

I am not bothered by "rules" and am a law biding citizen. And of course your assertion is now bordering on the extreme just to make a point. This is an ineffective and sophomoric tactic. I never suggested anything about not obeying the law. I simply made the point that how we govern ourselves is based on, amongst other things, a carrot and stick model. Now the govt has even bigger sticks. This is evolutionary , not revolutionary. We are headed in the direction of the economic chaos that is now enveloping Europe. It may happen in the next 20 or 50 years or later, but thats the direction we're going. Margaret Thatcher said it quite nicely, at some point you run out of other peoples money.

Soooooooo, what then?? You defined how laws work. Good for you. So what? It was called the "Health Care Law" and not the "Health Care Suggestion". It's a law. It works like every other law. Nobody ever suggested otherwise. In this case, there is a caveat where you can, like any other law, comply or pay a fine. The only thing that is sophmoric here is your endless hyperbole.

"Obama-care puts you between you and your Doctor." What, why and how?
None of this will affect those who already have insurance.
Harry Truman said,"I usually find that those who are loudest in protesting against medical help by the federal government are those who do not need help."

I am unclear as to what the Supreme Court decided, what the actual impact will be. Watching the tickers this morning on Wall Street it appears that a lot of bets are in play. I get some offers in the mail about add-on health insurance. So far I have only spent ~300 bucks on a health care screen from INOVA this year. In the process I had to sign some waivers and release forms. Its scary what is happening and nobody can explain one way or another what is happening, its either that or I found the information not credible enough. For all I know its a political fight and I am at the losing end of it whichever way the outcome. My doctor is also stunned.

Looks like the Patch poll numbers got cleared through a technical glitch. I was able to submit another "vote" - not that these numbers mean anything at all.

So I guess the next time the auto industry is flailing, Congress can just require everyone to buy a new car, or pay a penalty on their tax forms. After all, if it's on the tax form, it's a tax. Just great.

Well, good news is that now we all know that Obama lied about never raising taxes, "not one cent" on anyone making under $250k. Since it has been ruled a tax by SCOTUS, now everyone making under $250k will get a nice tax increase.

The fact of the matter is, that many people say they don't want healthcare mandates from the government, but they are also often the people who complain the most when someone in their family is affected by an expensive healthcare issue. Guess who then complains that the government should pick up the bill?

I am glad to hear that people will no longer be denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions (and these can include such everyday issues such as allergies). I would like to see everyone in our country have access to affordable health care. We have a long way to go before healthcare is affordable and available to all, but at least this is a step in the right direction.

Once I realized all of this did not involve any sort of serious tort reform I thought it was a joke. Did in 2009, still do.

Does this law apply to the millions of illegal aliens (those not yet amnestied under Obama's executive order) who don't have insurance? We say we don't want uninsured people b/c they cost us money and we work to prevent high school dropouts, but yet we are fine with millions of uninsured high school dropouts crossing our borders every year.

I have (painfully) read the entire opinion, including the concurring and dissenting statements. I think it's completely reasonable, as a legal result. And the tax vs non-tax logic is completely sensible in the Federal context of tax law. The individual mandate is not a tax. Declining -ANY- form of coverage, by contrast, leads to the equivalent of a user's tax, because every person who is not somehow covered or immune does, in fact, create tax burdens for others. Most health care in the US has been publicly paid for over many decades, as a result of the workers' comp laws enacted by the states, and the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations' actions re the original and the later versions of medicare and medicaid. All the ACA does, as actually to be implemented, is appropriately bill free-riders and permit those who aren't free-riders to retain minimal coverage. The actual mandated coverage, by the way, is only 60% of the minimum base costs for ten particular classes of health care cost, so this is far, far from a full-care program in any event.

There is so much more in this bill that has little to do with "health care"....stuff that none of you have touched on. Do some research, read the bill, all 1990 pages if you can. It's eye-opening and not in a good way.

To everyone who insists they don't want or need insurance - if you have a heart attack or an accident, will you really say, "No, leave me here. I don't have insurance and it wouldn't be right to go to the hospital when I know I can't pay." No, you'll do what people without insurance do now - go anyway and let everyone else pay for it. Hospitals can't turn away people without insurance. That's one reason they cost so much. We are already paying for other people's health care. It's just not being called a tax.

@Mary Ann Barton - Do you realize that your poll can be taken multiple times by the same person? I wonder which side is more likely to cheat? In any case, I recommend that you fix the poll webpage, or take down the poll or just label it "This is an invalid poll, you can vote multiple times".

Great day for Big Government and Big Medicine!

SCOTUS endorses Romneycare. Great day for der Mitter.

Yes Colleen...and if the Founding Fathers had intended to give the Federal Government the ability to lay taxes they would have explicitly said so in the Constitut...oh wait...

Lets step back here a bit and review what has actually happened. The Supreme Court of the United States, has just declared Constitutional the Heritage Foundation position on health care pre-Obama. It is the same position held by Willard Mitt Romney, Newton LeRoy Gingrich, and Addison Mitchell McConnell..pre-Obama. It is in fact a huge boon to the PRIVATE insurance industry who now acquire 38 million new, young, customers...including some subsidized by the Government. Fifteen years ago this was a Republican wet dream. But since the scary "usurper" in the White House proposed it all of a sudden it is socialism run amok and the death to liberty as we know it...terms those throwing them around obviously don't know the definition of!

It's yet another way to take your productivity, more of your property, and more of your liberty. They will redistribute it any way they please now. You can work your whole life, but if they determine that someone who spent their life being promiscuous got some STD, and it's more politically popular to treat that STD instead of treating you-then too bad.

All the while, forming their new relationships on how they will not participate in the health care system they implemented. The SEIU is not participating. Nancy Pelosi got a provision in the bill that created a special health insurance program for the speaker's staff, assuming she would still be speaker. The politicians have made sure, like with social security, that they won't have to participate in it.

The rich will pay out of pocket, and anyone who cannot afford to escape the system will be funneled into the system, managed as efficiently and effectively as the public schools. For the longest time people thought it was like the third rail of politics to discuss how public schools were funded. People don't want to hear the "evil speak" of one asking how the public school system is being funded. A family with one child and a family with five children pay the same rate for and education for all of the children. Meaning, if you are the family with the one child, you are taking a huge loss for your education dollar. If you are the family with five children, you take a huge gain.

(cont) This is how the health care system is going to be run now. Everybody has to buy it, if you cannot afford it, it will be given to you. So the non-participants will come out ahead, the participants will be behind. 50% of the American population has no federal tax liability. So now we get to see an increase the taxes for Obamacare (http://www.atr.org/full-list-obamacare-tax-hikes-listed-a7010), even though Obama never called it a tax...yet it was upheld by the Supreme Court because it was a tax. The bottom line is the recipient class gets even more from the productive class, while they call it "justice, the right thing to do, going forward, etc."

Factor in decades of precedent (starting with Wilson's grand progressive vision), you now have something in place that can eventually lead into single payer. Now there is no reason for any company in the US to extend health care coverage any more, all the while the people who engineered this are trying to figure out how not to participate in it. Ted Kennedy always called health care "the dream" in which he fought bitterly for single payer, universal health care for decades. Yet towards the end of his life he was rushed to the best hospitals, probably pushing other people out of the way, no resource or cost would be spared to save him. None of the people like him would ever allow themselves, or their families, to be treated as you will be treated.

(cont) The funny thing about justice, social justice, equality, or fairness is what that really means is socialism is for the people and not the socialist. They are too important, they are the supervisor making the level playing field, they cannot participate in these programs because the system is reliant on them. The people need the politicians and govt. bureaucrats. So the Obama's, Clinton's, Pelosi's, etc. won't have to wait in the same lines as you. The people who were on the outside, like SEIU, are now on the inside at your expense.

Instead of making the system more amiable to everybody's budget by offering products and services with a myriad of options, they said there is only one type of plan and you have to extend it to all people.

The popular provisions, like keeping your kid on your plan until 26 was already there. Same goes the pre-existing condition thing at the state level. Plans are bought and sold based on the condition of the work force, not the individual-most states already had that. That is not ground breaking stuff. The ground breaking stuff is what we have now is the federal govt. has granted itself the power to compel a citizen to buy any product that the government deems necessary.

(cont) Now every single business producing a product or service is going to frame that product or service as an absolute necessity (like health care). It's absolutely necessary that all American homes are powered by green energy. The congress might agree, the supreme court might agree. General motors might say it's absolutely necessary for the health and strength of the American people to drive a GM car. The congress might agree, the supreme court might agree. Bottled water companies, vitamin companies, shoes that a produced to reduce body fat...they all find a way to convince the right people.

Why sell your products to the market when all you need to do is convince a few bureaucrats that your product is important. You do not need a free market. You just need to get your product legislated.

I am happy to see a bigger percentage that favor the AHA.

ObamaCare is an ugly piece of legislation. When Obama and Congress drop their privileged medical insurance coverage and live within the ObamaCare coverage, the legislation may then be worth reading. As SCOTUS has ruled, it is just another excise tax.

I once spent two years in which I received socialized medicine. It worked quite well. I was in the U.S. Army.
Socialism? Yeah, right.
Next we'll hear from the tea-party types here about "death panels" run by government bureaucrats. But those jabbering about such things never protested or advocated against insurance company recission policies. They take premiums from some people for years and years, then when those people develop serious illnesses the insurance companies use pretext to cancel the policies -- such as denying coverage because someone in their 50s once had treatment for acne as a teenager. That sort of thing. They pay employees bonuses for denial quotas.
Ask any doctor's office what they think of the huge number of heavily bureaucratic, paper-work monsters called insurance companies. They stand between you and your doctor in more menacing profile than any government bureaucrat ever could.
Don't think I ever saw Fox News report on recission policies.

The US is spending close to 18% of its GDP on healthcare, highest in the world. The No. 2 country spends 10%. Of the top 30 industrialized countries, the U.S. ranks about 23 on genreral health criteria. I think everyone agrees that we do not have a good health care system. We do have the best specialized services in the world, but not basic healthcare. It comes down to how to address coverage and costs. It also comes down to fee for service vs. fee for outcome. As long as we have fee for service, costs will remain high, delivery inefficient. In general, Republicans support focusing on costs, then coverage will follow. Democrats focus on coverage first, costs next. My personal opinion is that the Democratic approach will get us coverage and reasonable costs quicker than the Republican approach.

I'm excited about this bill, even more so after reading on the comments on this thread. I believe as a country we are def moving in the right direction!

Why?

@Olivia Why?