Nixon, Kinder React to Court Ruling on Health Care Act

(Jefferson City, MO)--The United States Supreme Court upheld President Obama's health care law Thursday, ruling that the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine is constitutional as a tax.

The individual mandate is still months away from implementation, while other, more popular provisions, like allowing individuals up to age 26 to remain on their parents health care plan, have already gone into effect.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, R-Mo., who filed his own challenge to the law in federal court, said the decision makes his own legal fight all the more important.

"Today's decision underscores the dire importance of pending lawsuits such as my own, the November election and the need for the full repeal of this monstrous tax on Americans," he said in a statement.

Kinder says the fact that the national health care policy was found to be a tax puts a political stain on its supporters in Congress.

"And there will be political accountability for everyone who voted for this who now gets to defend this act as insertion of congress' taxation power."

Kinder says it's now up to Governor Nixon to come up with ideas for how the plan will be implemented in Missouri.

Gov. Jay Nixon, D-Mo., who would be the one to implement the exchanges, has said he would wait to decide until after the Supreme Court ruled. Ahead of the ruling, Nixon declared his opposition to the individual mandate.

"I don't think the federal government should be telling people what they have to buy as far as private insurance," Nixon said. "That has been my position throughout. I don't think that is the proper role of the federal government."

In Missouri, nearly 14 percent of the population is uninsured. The state of Missouri now will consider whether to implement state level health insurance exchanges, as required by the law. Missouri voters will consider whether to allow the governor to implement the exchange without authority by the General Assembly.