The court ruled 7-2 that the red states and two individuals who brought the dispute do not have the legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of the law’s individual mandate to buy health insurance and ordered the case to be dismissed. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the majority opinion for the court.

The Supreme Court did not address the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate or whether it can be separated from the remainder of the law, the other two issues raised by the states.

“We do not reach these questions of the Act’s validity, however, for Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them,” Breyer wrote.

The states, the Supreme Court said, failed to show that the individual mandate, “without any prospect of penalty, will harm them by leading more individuals to enroll in these programs.”

The ruling from the Supreme Court is a major victory for President Biden and Democrats, who have fought to shield the Affordable Care Act from numerous attempts by Republicans to kill it both through legislation and in the courts.