Do You Agree with Supreme Court's Decision on "Obamacare?"

The Supreme Court announced Thursday morning that the Affordable Care Act mandating every American to purchase health insurance is constitutional and should stand.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices upheld most of the act, although the opinion is a complicated one. The court upheld the requirement that every American purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty, as a tax decision and upheld it on those grounds, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts.

"Our precedent demonstrates that Congress has the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000 under the taxing power, and that Section 5000 need not be read to do more than impose a tax," Roberts wrote in one of the key sentences from the opinion.

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.

The individual health care mandate is the key provision in Obamacare, and some legal experts thought that it could be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Had it been stripped from the law, many other provisions–such as covering people with pre-existing conditions and not capping insurance coverage–most likely would have been removed, as well.

The decision is a major victory for the Obama administration, which touted the law passed in March 2010 as its signature legislative achievement. However, there are other Americans who decried the law because of concerns about the federal government's role in regulating the health care industry.

How do you feel about the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare? How will it affect local businesses and families? Tell us in the comments section below.