In a major victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the broad reach of his healthcare law, ruling the government may continue to provide tax subsidies for low- and middle-income people who buy insurance nationwide, even in states that did not create an official insurance exchange of their own. 
  
 The 6-3 decision rejects a second conservative challenge to the law, one which could have left more than 6 million Americans scrambling to pay for their coverage. 
  
 The ruling is a crucial win for the Democratic White House, now that Republicans control the House and Senate. Had the high court ruled for the conservative challengers, it would have put the fate of the law in the hands of GOP leaders on Capitol Hill. 
  
 President Obama declared it a “good day for America," saying the "Affordable Care Act is here to stay." 
  
 “As the dust has settled,” he said, “there can be no doubt that the law is working.” 
  
 California officials and consumer groups cheered the ruling. 
  
 "Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act once again, we hope we can stop debating a 5-year-old law and discuss additional ways to reduce health costs," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group. 
  
 A court ruling against the Obama administration in the King vs. Burwell case wouldn't have had any immediate effect on Covered California and its 1.2 million consumers receiving subsidies because it's a state-run marketplace. 
  
 Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, said tax credits under the law should also be "available to individuals in states that have a federal exchange." 
  
 If no tax credits were allowed in these states, it “could well push a state’s individual market into a death spiral,” he wrote. 
  
 Roberts said the text and structure of the law make clear that Congress intended the insurance subsidies to be available nationwide. 
  
 “Had Congress meant to limit tax credits to state exchanges, it likely would have done so in the definition of an ‘applicable taxpayer’ or in some other prominent manner,” he wrote. “It would not have used such a winding path of connect-the-dots provisions about the amount of the credit.” 
  
 Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed. 
  
 The court’s three most conservative justices dissented. Justice Antonin Scalia called the majority’s opinion “quite absurd." He said it was inarguable that the law as written intended tax subsidies to be limited to the small number of states that established exchanges of their own. 
  
 The majority’s decision, Scalia said, "rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” 
  
 He said the two Roberts opinions upholding the health care law "publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites." 
  
 Roberts rejected the conservative challenge that said the court should focus on a four-word passage that seemed to limit insurance subsidies to state-established exchanges. 
  
 When interpreting laws, “we must read the words in context .… Our duty, after all, is to construe statutes, not isolated provisions,” he wrote. 
  
 The decision is a vindication for the president, who had openly questioned the court’s decision to hear the latest challenge. 
  
 By affirming the system of tax subsidies, the justices have the put the law on a firmer legal ground as a nationwide program to help all Americans obtain health insurance they can afford. 
  
 The ruling will also come as a relief to Democratic lawmakers, Congressional aides and health policy advocates who scrambled to put the complex law together late in 2009. They had devised an intricate plan to build on the nation’s private insurance system and require everyone with a taxable income to buy insurance or pay a penalty. For those who could not afford the full cost, they extended government-paid insurance for some and offered tax subsidies for others. These subsidies are offered to those with incomes up to $95,000 for a family of four. 
  
 However, the House and Senate passed different versions of the healthcare law in 2009. After the Democrats unexpectedly lost their 60-vote Senate supermajority after the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, the two houses agreed early in 2010 to jointly pass the bill that had already passed the Senate. 
  
 Only later did the bill’s supporters realize the Senate version included what critics first called a “wording glitch” that threatened the subsidies. One provision said the subsidies were to help pay for insurance purchased on an exchange “established by the state.” That limitation loomed large by 2012, since most of the states had opted to rely on an exchange established by federal authorities rather than set up their own. 
  
 Aware of the problem, the Internal Revenue Service issued a regulation in 2012 that authorized tax credits for insurance purchased on any government-sponsored exchange, whether state or federal. ||||| Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP 
  
 On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare's insurance subsidies in a 6-3 decision penned by Chief Justice John Roberts. Legal experts had long dismissed the merits of the case, and it even turned out that the plaintiffs had questionable standing. 
  
 But to three of the court's conservative justices, the court's decision to side with the government is a sign not only that the court is full of partisan hacks, but also that words themselves hold no meaning. 
  
 In a blistering 21-page dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia accused John Roberts of abandoning his judicial independence to defend Obamacare at any and all costs. "[N]ormal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved," Scalia writes. 
  
 Just how absurd is it, in Scalia's mind, that the court upheld the subsidies? Here are his other prime quotes of indignation at the majority's opinion: ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has upheld the nationwide tax subsidies under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, in a ruling that preserves health insurance for millions of Americans. 
  
 The justices said in a 6-3 ruling Thursday that the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, under the 2010 health care law. 
  
 The outcome is the second major victory for Obama in politically charged Supreme Court tests of his most significant domestic achievement. 
  
 Chief Justice John Roberts again voted with his liberal colleagues in support of the law. Roberts also was the key vote to uphold the law in 2012. 
  
 Justice Anthony Kennedy also voted with his more liberal colleagues. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?
– The Supreme Court kicked off the first of the seven biggest decisions it's issuing in the coming days with another major win for ObamaCare. The verdict: The court upheld the federal tax subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, voting 6-3 to preserve health insurance for 8.7 million Americans and solidifying President Obama's signature domestic achievement, the AP reports. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy—who dissented in the 2012 decision upholding the law—sided with their liberal colleagues in the vote. Writing for the majority, Roberts stated, "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them." Further, "tax credits are available to individuals in states that have a federal exchange," per the Los Angeles Times. If the credits were disallowed, he continued, it "could well push a state's individual market into a death spiral." Meanwhile, Justice Antonin Scalia calls the majority's decision "pure applesauce" and accuses his colleagues of "interpretive jiggery-pokery" in a 21-page dissent that nearly reaches Walt Frazier levels with its colorful language, Talking Points Memo reports. "You would think the answer would be obvious—so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it," he writes, per Mother Jones, adding in a comment that's getting lots of Twitter reaction as one of the snarkiest comments made about the case yet: "[The decision] rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare." Joining him in his dissent were justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, TPM notes.