Health Care Ruling | featured news

Americans are split down the middle on the Supreme Court's decision to uphold President Obama's health care law.

Insurance companies hailed the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act, saying it gives them certainty about the rules they'll face as they push to cut administrative costs and reward doctors who contain health care costs by emphasizing preventive care.

Here are four things Americans learned about the federal government's grand vision to ensure health care for everyone under so-called Obamacare... Not obtaining insurance in 2014 will cost a person $95 or 1% of his or her income, whichever is higher. In 2015, it's $325, or 2% of income. For families, the penalty will be $285 per household or 1% of income, whichever is greater. By 2016, it goes up to $2,085 per family or 2.5% of income. Penalties will rise each year.

President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is on the way to its ultimate jury: the families, doctors, business people and state officials who'll have to grapple with the confusing details while striving to fulfill its promise....

Just hours after the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care law, his campaign put out a video trumpeting the legislation.

Romney repeated his vow to repeal the law if elected. But even if his fellow Republicans win both chambers of Congress in the November 6 elections, Democrats will likely still retain enough seats in the Senate to keep the law in place.

U.S. President Barack Obama pledged on Thursday to implement and improve his signature healthcare law after the Supreme Court upheld it, a decision the president described as a victory for Americans that should put to rest the fight over reform.

Both CNN and Fox News Channel initially reported incorrectly that the law's central provision, requiring virtually all Americans to have health insurance, had been struck down. In an apology, CNN said it "regrets that it didn't wait to report out the full and complete opinion regarding the mandate."

Passed by sharply divided Congress, a sharply divided Supreme Court upholds the health care reform law in a sharply divided, convoluted way. The individual mandate — forcing people to buy health insurance — is unconstitutional. But making people pay a tax if they don’t buy insurance is a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to tax. So in practice, the mandate stands. So the Supreme Court rules against Obama’s claim that the mandate is not a tax, but because Obama’s wrong, the law stands.

Stocks of hospital companies rose sharply and insurance companies fell Thursday after the Supreme Court upheld a requirement that almost all Americans carry health insurance. The stock of Hospital Corp. of America, the largest private hospital chain in the United States, rose a little more than 7 percent. Quest Diagnostics, which runs laboratories, rose almost 3 percent.