Justices consider whether Medicaid expansion is constitutional or coercive

During the Supreme Court's last hour of a marthon series of oral arguments, some justices indicated strong disagreement with the challenge brought by 26 states to the health law's Medicaid expansion.

USA Today: Supreme Court Questions Obama Medicaid Rules 
Conservative justices on the Supreme Court sharply questioned the government's lawyer Wednesday on whether the Medicaid expansion in President Obama's health care law carries a threat to states that should render it unconstitutional. While all four liberal justices defended the expansion as a good deal for the states. ... It was not clear, however, that there was enough conviction among the five conservatives for them to support the claim of 26 states that the law's Medicaid expansion should be thrown out (Wolf, 3/28).

The Associated Press: Health Care Arguments: Now What About Medicaid?
[T]he justices indicated strong disagreement with a challenge from 26 states that calls the expansion of the joint state-federal program unconstitutionally coercive. More than 15 million people would get health care through Medicaid, and the federal government would pay all of the costs at first, dropping to 90 percent after about five years. Justice Elena Kagan wondered why "a big gift" from the federal government could be considered coercive (Sherman, 3/28).

Politico Pro: Justices Push Back On States' Case Against Medicaid Expansion
The Supreme Court's liberal justices hammered the health care reform law's opponents with tough questions about their objections to the law's Medicaid expansion Wednesday -; and even Chief Justice John Roberts sounded skeptical of the states' argument that the law makes unreasonable demands on their Medicaid programs. The conservative justices stayed mostly silent during the early part of Wednesday's arguments on the Medicaid expansion. ... But Roberts's questions suggested that not all of the conservative justices will be an easy sell for the states' case that Congress overstepped its powers (Haberkorn, 3/28).