Until Thursday, it wasn’t clear that future generations would have much to assess about the enduring legislative legacy of the Obama presidency.

There had been no victory on climate change, no shift in the way Washington worked, no grand bargain to cut the deficit. And it looked as if a hostile Supreme Court was going sour on the Obama administration’s one big policy accomplishment — the marquee law achieving the liberal movement’s decades-long goal of near-universal health care…

Obama — who has drawn scorn from critics for comparing himself to the greats, from ­Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt — can finally include his name on the list of those who have secured landmark legislation. One senior aide told reporters Thursday that the law was on a par with Medicare and Social Security in its lasting importance.