BREAKING: Supreme Court Upholds Obama's Healthcare Reform

Justices rule in favor of the central element of the president's signature achievement

The Supreme Court has upheld President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, ruling the individual mandate, or the requirement that American purchase health insurance, is constitutional as a tax.

In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court's four liberal leaning justices to affirm Congressional authority to enact the Affordable Care Act's mandate under its taxing power, Politico reports.

In other words, the president and the Democratically-controlled Congress had not overstepped its bounds in passing the health care reforms in 2010. Republican leaders, however, pledged to move forward with a House vote to symbolically repeal the Affordable Care Act.

More about the ruling from Politico:

In a stinging dissent, Justice Anthony Kennedy suggested that the other justices wanted to wipe out the entire law. "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety,” he wrote.

In the ruling, Roberts wrote that the court rejected the idea that the mandate regulates people under existing commercial activity. But the court ruled that Congress can impose mandate under the taxing power.

"It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce,” Roberts wrote.

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Leading up to Thursday’s decision, the Obama administration expressed confidence that the court would uphold the law.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act, if the Supreme Court did not overturn it.

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