"When you say you’re coerced, it means you’ve been given an offer you can’t refuse," said Justice Scalia. "You can’t refuse your money or your life."
Justice Roberts also expressed doubt that HHS would not use its authority to withhold its share of a state’s Medicaid funding. "We have to analyze the case on the assumption that that power will be exercised."
At the end of the day, Mr. Verrilli made a somewhat emotional appeal to the justices to keep the ACA intact. Americans who receive health care under the Medicaid expansion will be "unshackled from the disabilities" of their diseases and "have the opportunity to enjoy the blessings of liberty," he said.
The health reform law "was a judgment of policy, that democratically accountable branches of this government made by their best lights," Mr. Verrilli said. "I would encourage this court to respect that judgment and ask that the Affordable Care Act, in its entirety, be upheld."