This was no victory. Instead of “Government can regulate anything it wants to under the commerce clause” we have “Government can regulate anything it wants to under its taxing authority”.
The bill did not originate in the house (as bills that tax and spend are supposed to). No one called it a tax when they wrote it; rather the authors explicitly explained why it was not a tax. Obama continues to deny that it is a tax, and the solicitor general argued before the Supreme Court that it was a “penalty, not a tax”. And can you even have a penalty without a crime?
Crass, deceptive, plainly offensive to our democratic processes and yet all perfectly legal.