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Anthony Kennedy disagreed. He called the law an affront to individual liberty and should have been entirely rejected.
"The values that should have determined our course today are caution, minimalism and the understanding that the federal government is one of limited powers," he said. "The court's ruling undermines those values at every turn."
"The act requires the purchase of health insurance and punishes violation of that mandate with a penalty," he added.
"But what Congress called a "penalty,' the court calls a tax. What Congress called a "requirement,' the court calls an option....In short, the court imposes a tax when Congress deliberately rejected a tax."
At the same time, majority justices rejected the administration's main argument about congressional authorization to regulate interstate commerce.
The Commerce Clause doesn't give legislators the right to require people buy health insurance, they said.
It's "not a general license to regulate an individual from cradle to grave, simply because he will predictably engage in particular transactions," said Roberts.
In a separate opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called arguments against the Commerce Clause "stunningly retrogressive."
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