KnightNews.com is following breaking news out of the Supreme Court, which has handed down its 5-4 ruling on President Barack Obama’s controversial healthcare law, known as Obamacare.
Here are the highlights of the key rulings:
Individual mandate requring all americans to have health insurance was upheld.
Insurance companies must still cover pre-existing conditions.
End of lifetime limits on coverage upheld.
Children can still stay on parents’ insurance until age 26.
However, expansion of medicaid to cover more of the poor has been struck down as unconstitutional, according to CBS news.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE SCOTUS OPINION ON OBAMACARE
Republicans have vowed to repeal the law, and many Supreme Court justices issued dissenting opinions saying the law should have been unconstitutional.
However, Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, surprised observers by voting to uphold the law.
The decision came amid confusion this morning, with CNN initially incorrectly reporting the individual mandate was struck down.
According to The Huffington Post, “CNN’s congressional correspondent Kate Boulduan read out part of the Court’s ruling, which said that the individual mandate could not be upheld using the Commerce Clause. Disastrously, though, it failed to pick up the other part of the ruling, which said that it could be upheld as a tax.”
Bouldan came back on air later to correct the report on what she called a “very confusing large opinion.”
Now the question is what the impact this ruling will have on the 2012 presidential election. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, from Florida, is already tweeting about it.
Rubio tweeted: “#SCOTUS upholds #Obamacare because it is a #taxincrease. I thought @barackobama said it wasnt a #tax?”
“Now that we know #Obamacare is indeed a #jobkilling #Tax we should move to #RepealObamacare as soon as possible,” he added.
Rubio later released this video statement:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVaZALpuecc
KnightNews.com is waiting for Obama to give a speech on this major ruling, which may come as early as 12:15 p.m. and will work to carry it live here, below, as it happens:
KnightNews.com is working to gather more information and will update this story as we get it.
