Justices Skeptical of Health Care Law’s Expansion of Medicaid

Wrapping up a three-day marathon of oral arguments about President Obama’s health care overhaul, the Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on whether the rest of the law can stand on its own if the justices were to strike down the individual mandate requiring Americans to purchase insurance.

The nine justices seemed to agree that carving out the mandate would dramatically alter much of the law but disagreed on which route to take, with Republican-appointed judges appearing to lean toward scrapping the whole thing while Democrat-appointed judges said that’s a decision for Congress to make.

“It’s a choice between a wrecking operation, which is what you are requesting, or a salvage job,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Paul Clement, an attorney for the states seeking to have the Affordable Care Act tossed out in its entirety. The more conservative approach, Justice Ginsburg said, would be to salvage, “rather than throwing out everything.”

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