While I’m very glad I was wrong about the outcome, I’m still surprised that four Justices felt that the entire Affordable Care Act should be overturned. Not just the mandate but the entire thing. That implies they (Kennedy, Alito, Scalia and Thomas) feel all federal authority is up for grabs. In their argument that the Medicaid expansion went too far (essentially, the feds said “Okay, states, you expand your coverage to more people and we’ll pay for it for the first couple of years, but after that you’ll have to start paying more yourselves”) they said that’s unconstitutional because it forces states to do things if the states want federal money. As Scott Lemieux says at The Prospect’s “The Docket” blog, they stated

“The offer of the Medicaid Expansion was one that Congress understood no State could refuse.” The problem is that this would leave the existing constitutional order a complete shambles, as the same could be said of any other exercise of the federal spending power—including Medicare and federal education spending—which involve deals that it is impractical for states to turn down.

I hadn’t thought of it, but that’s a scary outcome. It would essentially take away any leverage the federal government has to get states to do things the feds think are desirable. “Integrate schools or lose federal money?” Couldn’t be done. “Spend transportation money on infrastructure rather than diverting it to balance budgets?” Too bad, feds.

Not the world most Democrats want to envision.