newshour contributor marcia coyle of the national law journal was there and joins me now. talk about this wisconsin case. in 2011, it was a big deal, this idea that voters had to present photo i.d.s at the polls and this was considered by democrats to be voter suppression and by republicans a chance to beat voter fraud. so this gets to the supreme court and they decided to end ut? >> not really. they decided not to hear the wisconsin case, so that leaves in place the lower-court decision upholding wisconsin's law. the court said nothing about the merits of the challenge to wisconsin's law. and, gwen, right now, there are a number of other cases pending and moving up the pipeline that challenge other states' voter i.d. laws and in particular, texas and north carolina. texas, there was a full-blown trial and the judge in that case found intentional racial discrimination by the state of texas, unlike in wisconsin that case is now on appeal in the sixth circuit and expected whoever loses will take it to the supreme court. so as of today, we really don't know how the justices t

newshour contributor marcia coyle of the "national law journal" was there. s the day everyone's been waiting for. >> big case judy. marcia, we know the court has weighed in on the constitutionality of the healthcare law. reminds us who brought this complaint and what is it about? >> this is what we call a statutory interpretation case involves the justices looking at a provision in the affordable care act and deciding what it means, what congress intended and the context and text of the law itself. this challenge to it was brought by four virginia residents who claim that there is a provision in the law that says federal subsidies or tax credits for low and middle income americans are available only on exchanges established by the state. they claim that does not include subsidies for purchaseons exchanges that the federal government creates. the act allows the federal government to step in and create exchanges when a date opts not to. as you probably know, only 16 states have created their own exchanges. 34 states opted for the federal government to come in a

. >> reporter: marcia coyle, "national law journal." >> my pleasure. >> ifill: on wednesday, the courthear oral arguments in a case that goes to the heart of the affordable care act. at issue is whether the law bars the federal government from subsidizing health plans in the 34 states that rely on the federal health insurance exchange. the health care coverage of more than eight million people rides on the decision. special correspondent sarah varney begins our report in north carolina. this story was produced in collaboration with kaiser health news. >> reporter: it's been a bitterly cold winter in the blue ridge mountains for julia ray and 13-year-old son charles. >> did you drink your coffee already? >> yes. >> reporter: but despite the punishing weather, 2015 is looking good. ray has finally been able to afford the insulin and other medications she needs to keep her diabetes under control. she's a self-employed auditor who relies on a $400 a month government subsidy to afford the private health plan she bought on mac.gov. before the affordable care act made tax credits available to

as always, joining us to explain her day at the court is newshour contributor marcia coyle of the "nationalournal." we'll start in alabama with this redistricting case which we talked about some time ago in the program. we talked about the district in alabama and whether race was a factor. on the left is the way it is now and on the right is the much larger 7th district which the plaintiffs were saying had been drawn in order to put all the black voters in one area. >> that was the claim that this was a racial gerrymander that black voters were packed into districts that were already majority districts in order to make surrounding districts more white and republican. the claim is unconstitutional racial germander. a three-judge panel of a federal district court agreed with the state that it was not racial gerrymander and the alabama legislative black caucus and the alabama democratic conference brought an appeal to the supreme court which ruled today. >> ifill: 5-4. 5-4, and the opinion written by justice breyer found the lower federal district court made a number of errors, two probably ke