and my reading of it is that the subsidies are available to individuals in states that have a federal exchange. so it is a big victory for the obama administration. basically, the supreme court has, for the second time, bailed out obamacare. it has rescued it from a legal challenge. so there s two things to say here about what happened with this obamacare case today. two things that seem important to me.
time, but i feel like we can start to sketch out what his impact has been, big terms, like, what he has changed, not just in terms of policy, but also in terms of politics. do you feel like you can start to see the what i that he has changed democratic politics or the overall left/right direction of the country? take a look at the language within the democratic party right now. it s much further to the left than it was in the 1990s or even in 2008. that is to some extent the effect of a president moving gently the party to the left. michael beschloss, thanks for being here. lots to come tonight, including the other ginormous ruling the supreme court could be ruling on tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. please stay with us. five years in, this is no longer about a law. this is not about the affordable care act as legislation or obamacare as a political football. this is health care in america. so this was a good day for america. let s get back to work. naturally beautiful babies.
it was the same kind of reasoning, same kind of expectations and projections about what the court was thinking that had a lot of people, not just on the edge of their seats, but basically hovering a few inches beyond the edge of their seats, on the other major case on which the court ruled today. there was not just worry, but honest to goodness fear among most people i know who were following this case closely, real fear for the health system in this country and for what the conservatives in the supreme court might have been planning to do to it. and that fear derived from the fact that the court took this case at all in the first place. when the supreme court announced that they would hear arguments on this obama care case, there was a big uh-othat swept across the land, not because of anything about the affordable care act itself, not because
this is one of the funniest things i ve ever had to correct. at the top of the show, i showed this photo, reaction to the obamacare ruling. on the left side of your screen, vice president biden hugging chief of staff denis mcdonough, who s making a funny face. and i said it was president obama hugging health secretary sylvia burwell, which is what i thought at the time. turns out, that s not who the president is hugging. he s actually hugging deputy white house chief of staff, christy kenagala. so wrong person, but right hug. my fault. i got that wrong. very sorry. be right back.
this one today, unapologetic, and assertive that this is the health care system of the united states of america now, and there has to be a good reason, not just a trick or a glitch or a gotcha that you can use as an excuse to tear it down. from the ruling, congress passed the affordable care act to improve health care markets, not to destroy them. we must interpret the act in a way that is consistent with the former and avoids the latter. twice now, the supreme court has taken up these tests, president obama s signature legislative achievement. twice now, he has passed those tests. and as i see it, at least, looking at the pipeline of all the cases that are out there, all the legal strategies that are out there from the republicans to try to tear this thing down, it looks like there s not going to be another one of these tests at the supreme court, at least while president obama is still in office. and so, yeah, this is a huge deal. this is a huge day. and as policy, there is further t