Here is a sampling of how influential residents of the Mid-coast region reacted to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act: “Incredibly huge annual health care increases here have made it harder and harder to cover our employees and this will, over time, tend to reduce those increases by bringing people into the health insurance system. … It will have a hugely positive impact on people we represent — working people — who are most often out of work because of disability or injury or discrimination.” — Jim Cash, attorney at McTeague Higbee, a Topsham law firm that represents Local S6 of the Machinists union and the Maine AFL-CIO.

“The individual mandate does not withstand constitutional scrutiny if Congress uses the Commerce Clause as the source of its power, and the mandate could not have politically withstood the opinion of the American people if it had been branded a tax when the law was being devised.”

— William Schneider, Maine’s attorney general and a Durham resident.

“My first reaction was a very positive one, especially thinking about the 46,000 Americans who die every year because they don’t have health insurance. … The Supreme Court’s actions today provide us some hope to furthering the progress of health reform in order to save those unnecessary deaths and many thousands more who suffer needlessly because they don’t have access to basic health care because of a lack of insurance.” — Dora Anne Mills, vice president for Clinical Affairs at the University of New England and a Brunswick resident.

“While the Affordable Care Act had some flaws, it really is a springboard for needed change in health care in our country — the cost of health care is breaking the back of our economy. … We’ve been working on our vision for the future of health care that is very much in line with the principles that the affordable care act launches as a starting point for change.”

— Lois Skillings, president and CEO of

Mid Coast Health Services in Brunswick

“When you look at Washington, D.C., and Augusta, you can view them as the coaches on the sidelines and we — Parkview, and the other hospitals — are the players on the field. We’re making the plays and getting the job done on a daily basis and waiting for the coaches on the sidelines to tell us the plays. …I think there’s still a lot that we need to know and it’s going to become clearer as we go down that path.” — Tory Ryden, community relations director for Parkview Adventist Medical Center in Brunswick