i hope you have found the view of the crisis as a bargaining enterprise to be helpful and understanding what is happening in europe and this evening, we will have the ultimate uncoop rative game, which is the football match starting in a couple of hours, so we'll all be watching and seeing how that comes out as a metaphor for the future of the euro zone, but thank you very much. good morning and welcome to the continuing live coverage of the supreme court's decision day on the president's health care law. you can see the crowds gathered outside the supreme court. it is just seconds after 10:00 a.m. eastern time. the court is in session now beginning as of 10:00. there are three decisions. we are anticipating health care will be the final one of those and along with the crowd and

along with all of washington, we will be watching and waiting to see the court's decisions on the four cases it hard oral argument on concerning the president's health care law. we'll be bringing you reaction from the public, from washing n washington, including capitol hill and the white house of course. and we'll be taking your calls later on once the decision is known. also, be streaming this live on cspan.org. what's different about today, we will be adding the live blogging on our screen, so you can follow these court experienced reporters as they give us the details of what's happening inside the court with these decisions. we're going to watch and wait for a few minutes now. read some of what the blog has to say and we'll be back throughout the morning as events happen.

first decision out this morning and that is the case of u.s. versus alvarez. you can see the ninth circuit's decision is affirmed and the statute does violate the first amendment. breyer and kagan concur.

first amendment scrutiny so congress could probably rewrite this. it is the stolen valor act is the heart of it. passed in 2006 which makes it a federal misdemeanor to lie about receiving any u.s. military decoration or medal. first case out of the court this morning. u.s. versus alvarez.

and you're watching the crowds as they are anticipating the supreme court's ruling on the president's health care law. right now inside the courtroom, the first case of the morning, the alvarez decision, the decision was affirmed. the alvarez 2006 stolen valor act didn't meet the first amendment test by supreme court. three justices, alito, scalia and thomas dissented and right now u, reading the opinion and as that goes on, crowds outside anticipating the supreme court's major landmark ruling of the day op the health care law. we have a twitter feed going for your comments as we know more about the decision. you can tweet us and we will use many of your tweets on air throughout the day today.

the sec of three cases, financial corp. was dismissed. that means the the court is moving on to the health care opinion. court reporters have the opinion from the public information office at the court and everyone immediately going to it to try to understand the substance of what they got.

as soon as we have more reporting, we'll be back to you with it. the core of this case, amy howe tells us the individual mandate has survived as a tax in the supreme court's review.

we must this entire law and turn it back to --

want to hear what doctors think about this? and doctors say that it's almost irrelevant what the supreme court rules today and you know why? -- >> let me underscore the analysis from the folks at scotusblog because this is important, they are also telling us that the chief justice, john roberts, has joined the left members of the court and many of the court watchers have been speculated he might during the

oral arguments, so that important piece of news. chief justice john roberts joining the leftward leaning members of the court and finding the individual mandate portion of the health care law as constitutional. we'll continue watching and learning more on this decision as it's being handed down from the court.

and as you can see, the bottom line the entire aca affordable care act has been upheld by the supreme court with the major victory for the obama administration and this ruling with the exception that the federal government's power to terminate state's medicare funds has been narrowly read, so the medicare portion of this, a separate case, has been limited, but still upheld. the headlines coming out of the supreme court today, the bottom line, the entire law of health care law has been upheld by the supreme court in its multipart review.

>> they tried to find common ground. there is no common ground when it comes to the constitution! >> want to focus on the patient! we don't need the the government focusing on us!

they have their own job to do and they're overreaching! >> hello, everybody. i am a russian who came from soviet union 34 years ago and i cannot -- this obamacare or affordable care health care is nothing but slavery and tyranny. in the future, more money, less care, russian care and -- russian federation today has been highest mortality rate under the european union in europe and if we will not repeal it, it's not going to be a very bad news for every citizen especially elderly and it's a grave, grave danger for your

freedom. thank you very much for being here. freedom is precious. once you lose it, you cannot take it back. fight for it. it's worth everything. god bless you and god bless this wonderful country. >> a message to irs, we will not comply with this uninstitutional tax, so you might as well just come over and get me now because i ain't paying it. >> you'll never, ever comply. >> i will not come --

>> dr. juarez. >> hi, my name is juan torres. listen to me once second because i want to tell you something --

are losing the doctors.

how many people really, do you know something? >> and with the court's verdict in, we are now going to leave the scotusblog. the final posting, two worth noting there. chief justice robert vote saved the affordable care act according to scotusblog and the the important interpretation by the supreme court as amy howe calls it the money quote from the section on the individual mandate, the the court believed that congress had the power to impose the mandate under its taxing power. and that it need not be read, which was sufficient to sustain the individual mandate. the court reenforces that individuals can simply refuse to pay the tax and not comply with

the mandate as part of its decision, so we'd like now to open up our phonen li lines fors decision to uphold the affordable care act with some provisions on the medicare provisions. phone lines are open. 20262411. democrats, 2026241115. and our line for independents is 2026240760. we'd like to hear your reaction as you are absorbing the decision. you can also send us a tweet. be sure to include the the aca. we will add your tweets to our coverage today and let's as we're waiti ing for our first call, show this tweet from mo

washington, who says upheld a great day for president obama let's ride for 2012. waiting for your phone call reactions as we watch tfolks outside the court today on cspan's live coverage.

we're going to be begin taking public reaction and before we get to calls, just a little more from the folks at scotusblog on the medicaid provision. that was one where the court

decided to limit the the law and here's what scotusblog is telling us on medicaid. a majority of the court holds a majority the constitutional that it would be unconstitutional -- so the important thing here is that the congress can use the aca to expand and require such states. what congress can't do is penalize states that choose not to participate by taking away their existing medicaid funding. so, the major news out of washington today, the the court upholding in large part except for this medicaid limitation and it's minor limitation of the overall law. the president's affordable health care act and we'd like to

hear what you think. the first comment from patrick, an independent in newport richie, florida. >> caller: what a sad, sad day in america. i am a 35-year-old father of four, a family of six. i choose not to get insurance myself. due to this, my family's insurance doubled and now i'm going to be forced to buy something that i don't want. bad enough we get social security taken away from us all the time. it's just sad. for all you people who think this is something great for america, you need to wake up and look at europe. sad, sad, sad. >> patrick from florida. miguel is a democrat in maryland and you are on, miguel. good morning. >> caller: good morning. i agree with the ruling. i've been in the medical field for 20 years or so, so i see people who are uninsured.

if you have healthy people paying into a system hopefully when they get older, they can use the same system. the man before says he has no problems not buying insurance and not paying for insurance. what happens to his kids when he goes to the emergency room? who pays for that? oh, i'll come out of pocket. just an iv bag, $1200 just to give you fluids. doesn't work that way. everybody's got to put into the system. lot of americans say oh, but we have the best insurance in the world. yeah, if you can afford to pay for that insurance and you have the money. if you have a job that pays you, that allows you fo get that insurance, that's great. there's a lot of jobs here that don't give you that insurance benefit. >> miguel, thank you so much. from the politics of this, on twitter, this viewer writes republicans get a win-win. they got public opinion against

president obama and got their individual mandate. in a few minutes, we're going to begin hearing reaction from members of congress. first up will be steve king of iowa.

>> i want you all to know that today is a tragic day. this ruling basically says our federal government is no longer limited and while certain portions of the constitution they use in order invalidate the mandate, they basically have said that congress has no limit to its taxes powers. this is the largest tax increase on the poor and the middle class in the history of this country. that is what this law was about and it was sold to the american people as a mandate and not a tax, but yet today, it is upheld as a tax. so the answer is simply to do what we do with all unconstitutional onerous taxes and that is to repeal it. so i call on the american people