Reaction Pours in on Supreme Court's Obamacare Decision

In a decisive 6-3 ruling Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed President Obama a significant victory, upholding nationwide tax subsidies in the Affordable Care Act, that's come to be known as Obamacare.

"We finally declared that in America health care is not a privilege for a few but a right for all," President Obama said.

"Over 6 million people would have probably lost their health insurance if the court had ruled the other way," said Northeastern University's director of health policy and law Wendy Parmet.

Parmet says people in 34 states on the federal exchanges would have been impacted.
According to pro-Obamacare group Families USA, in New England that includes 61,000 people in Maine and 30,000 people in New Hampshire.

"If the tax credits were not available to people who rely on them the vast majority of people buying insurance on the exchanges could not have afforded it, they would not therefore be subject to the mandate and the ACA would have unraveled," Parmet said.

Parmet said in Chief Justice Robert's written opinion he even referred to the three core components of the Massachusetts' health care system - requiring insurance, making it affordable and regardless of health status - saying Obamacare was built on that model.

But Massachusetts State Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr says he believes the Supreme Court missed an opportunity to say there's an error is in the law that Congress needs to fix.

"Just the fact that a state that served as a prototype for the affordable care act needs to seek multiple waivers just to prevent its health care system from being harmed by the ACA speaks to the fact that this is a debate that will likely go on for some time to come," Sen. Tarr said. 

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