system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: The recent Obamacare decision ruled by the Supreme Court, without bias.

Mandate upheld, mandate struck down. Either way I don't know what it means for the American people.
gpt
There were 4 questions before the court:

1. Can the court hear these arguments before anyone is actually penalized for not having health insurance?

2. Is the Individual Mandate to buy health insurance constitutional?

3. If not, is the rest of the law constitutional without the mandate?

4. Unrelated, can government require states expand medicare since the government is giving them money.


The decisions were as follows:

1. Yes, they can talk about it. This was unsurprising

2. The Individual Mandate is really a tax, not a fine. This is an important distinction because everyone agrees Congress can tax people but few people thought Congress could force people to buy stuff. This was the big question.

3. Moot point due to 2.

4. The court decided that if states take federal money they have to go with the federal rules, but states don't have to take the federal money and can then ignore the rules that come with the money. This was not terribly surprising.


The interesting thing is that the case was decided 5-4, with Republican appointed Chief Justice Roberts being the deciding vote. NOBODY expected that - they were expecting 5-4 against, 5-4 with KENNEDY the deciding vote, or 6-3 with Roberts joining so he could write the opinion. 

EDIT: The entire health care reform was upheld. You will have to have health insurance in 2014. There are a bunch of other provisions that were better explained elsewhere.