(repost from modernhealthcare.com)

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is constitutional, handing President Barack Obama a major election-year victory and shunning 26 states that had sought to overturn the reform law.

The court ruled for the first time that Congress has the power under the Constitution to compel individuals to purchase insurance as a means to regulate interstate economic activity. Critics had argued that unlike states, Congress lacked the power to force people to buy insurance because it could not regulate economic inactivity.

The landmark decision ends two years of legal uncertainty and clear the way for full implementation of the 906-page law. That includes establishing insurance exchanges in each state, prohibiting insurance companies from discriminating against the sick, and requiring nearly all Americans to prove on their income taxes that they carry health insurance starting in 2014.