By a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the penalty in the Affordable Care Act for not buying health insurance as within Congress's constitutional power to tax. Nat'l Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, No. 11-393 (U.S. June 28, 2012).

The majority consisted of Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the main opinion, and Associate Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor.

The ruling avoided a showdown over how far the federal government's power to regulate interstate commerce reaches.