U.S. top court upholds healthcare law in Obama triumph

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's healthcare law on Thursday in an election-year triumph for him and fellow Democrats and a stinging setback for Republican opponents of the most sweeping overhaul of the unwieldy U.S. healthcare system in about a half century.

In a 5-4 ruling based on the power of Congress to impose taxes, the court preserved the law's "individual mandate" requiring that most Americans obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a tax.