People in Kansas and other states that do not operate their own health insurance market exchanges can continue to receive federal subsidies to buy policies on the federal exchange, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

In a 6-3 decision, the court rejected a challenge by plaintiffs who argued that, as written, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” only allows subsidies to be paid for people who buy policies on state-based exchanges.

The ruling was good news for the nearly 70,000 Kansans, including nearly 5,000 in Douglas County, who have received federal subsidies to buy health insurance in the two years since the law took effect.

But it was a setback to critics of the health care law who hoped that a decision striking down the subsidies would be a death blow to the program that they have characterized as a federal “takeover” of the nation’s health care system.