WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the federal government must live up to its promise to shield insurance companies from some of the risks they took in participating in the exchanges established by President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the majority in the 8-to-1 ruling, said the court’s decision vindicated “a principle as old as the nation itself: The government should honor its obligations.”
The health care law had promised the insurers that they would be protected, she wrote, and it did not matter that Congress later failed to appropriate money to cover the insurers’ shortfalls. Continue reading.