AUGUSTA

Maine Democrats and consumers praised the Supreme Court decision Thursday upholding President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, saying it will extend coverage to thousands, while conservatives branded it “an assault on personal liberty.” Hospitals were torn, saying it presents opportunities and challenges.

Gov. Paul LePage called the decision “a massive overreach by the federal government” that will impose a tax that will push the nation off a financial cliff.

“Washington D.C., now has the power to dictate how we, as Americans, live our lives,” the Republican governor said.

Attorney General William Schneider, who joined 25 other states in challenging the law, said he was relieved the ruling does not allow the federal government to force the states to expand Medicaid.

Reactions among Maine officials and advocates were varied, but they agreed much is not known about the full impact the law will have in the state.

State Rep. Adam Goode, DBangor, said the ruling should preserve health coverage for thousands of Mainers, such as 19- and 20-year-olds and childless adults, who lost Medicaid eligibility through cuts made in the last state budget. Medicaid provides coverage for the poor and disabled.

“It’s a kind of a last parachute for Mainers who might have gotten whacked,” said Goode, a member of the Insurance and Financial Services Committee.

Democratic state Rep. Sharon Treat of Hallowell, who worked with a network of lawmakers from other states to fine-tune the national law, called the decision “an incredible victory” for tens of thousands of families across Maine.

Treat called on state officials to put aside politics and implement the law. She said it will give a family of four in Maine earning the median income of $46,000 a year a tax credit that would cover nearly 80 percent of the family’s total cost of health care for the year.

More than 121,000 Mainers, or about 9.4 percent of the population, lack health care coverage. Numbers may rise due to Medicaid cutbacks authorized by latest state budget.

Republican House Speaker Robert Nutting of Oakland and Republican Senate President

Kevin Raye of Perry, both expressed disappointment, saying the law contains a tax the nation can ill afford now.

Raye, a candidate for U.S. House, said the ruling should prompt voters “to elect a Congress and a president who will repeal a flawed and unworkable 2,700-page law rammed through with the kind of heavy-handed partisanship that disgusts the American people and has left Washington broken and dysfunctional.”

A conservative group with close ties to LePage, the Maine Heritage Police Center, said the decision will drive insurance rates up, tax Maine employers and threaten the viability of the private insurance market.

“This is a sad day for Mainers,” said Joel Allumbaugh, director of Health Reform Initiatives at MHPC. He said the Supreme Court “has approved federal legislation that assaults personal liberty, costs $2 trillion and creates a massive expansion in entitlements.”

Schneider noted that the court sided with the states by not forcing them to expand Medicaid programs beyond their own policy choices. States will not lose current levels of funding if they choose not expand Medicaid.

“In doing so, the court protected the states’ rights and prerogatives,” said Schneider. He also said that the individual mandate to buy insurance “could not have politically withstood the opinion of the American people if it had been branded a tax when the law was being devised.”

Maine has already implemented some changes included in the national law, such as allowing parents to add coverage of children up to age 25 and outlawing denial of insurance coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Maine has also passed a law that will allow consumers to shop out-of-state for coverage.

But the federal law leaves the states considerable flexibility to fashion some portions of the law, such as exchanges through which consumers can purchase coverage, and expansion of Medicaid, said Andrew Coburn, a professor of public health at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service.

The decision, Coburn said, should move the health care issue “out of the world of ideology” and into active policy making. The national law “creates some real choices for Maine people going forward.”

While the exact impacts in Maine are not fully known, the Maine Hospital Association said the newly upheld law presents challenges due to significant reductions in Medicaid reimbursements. But uninsured individuals will have a greater opportunity to be covered through either Medicaid or the private commercial market with the assistance of government subsidies, the MHA said in a statement.

The impact on business was also in dispute. A liberalleaning consumer group, the Maine People’s Alliance, said tax credits for small businesses to pay for employee health coverage “are vital for businesses all over Maine.” The alliance said the provision allowing parents to cover children up to age 26 is also important to young college graduates seeking to start their own businesses.

But the National Federation of Independent Business’ director in Maine, David Clough, said companies in the state are worried about increases in expenses and administrative work resulting from the law. Employers with 50 workers or more wonder if they will be penalized if they fail to provide health insurance, and owners of small, one- or two-person businesses wonder how they’ll afford the individual mandate, he said.

“There’s still a lot not known about what the state will do,” Clough said.

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