What happened to John Roberts?

[ananda]

Has he suddenly turned a bit to the left or what?

I'm so happy that he sided with the majority on
the healthcare mandate.

This is such good news!

[immoderate]

1. I rate it as a cynical and calculated move.

It was good news though.

--imm

[JI7]

2. i think it was trying to keep a certain integrity of the court, above politics

especially after things like Bush v Gore.

[SheilaT]

3. At the risk of being a little rude,

you just now noticed that he went in favor of Obamacare?

[ananda]

4. Be as rude as you like.

I'm still happy and I'm still wondering about Roberts.
Maybe he's getting a conscience.

[madinmaryland]

7. No. He is still a pro-corporation, pre-wealthy justice. He had wiggle room on the ACA

and took it. Don't expect to see it very often, with him voting with the liberal side of the court.

[Control-Z]

5. Is there a reason

you bring this up today? Has he done something new (and reasonable) that I haven't heard about?

[still_one]

6. He was a courageous person. The truth is the only way it could have been justified was as a tax

The administration and the citizens are darn lucky

If they argued that way it would have been constitutional without a doubt, but they were afraid to have it labeled as a tax for political repercussions

[bluestate10]

8. Roberts is a relatively young man.

My guess is that Roberts has maturing children that are challenging his point of view and causing him to rethink. Few liberals will admit that the great Harry Blackmun was a die-hard conservative for many years when first put on the Supreme Court, but became a decades long liberal stalwart. A similar dynamic took place for John Paul Stevens, who was put on the bench as a conservative, but became a legendary liberal Justice. Who would have thought that Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan would produce the two liberal kids that they produced.

[TheKentuckian]

9. Just a vote from the wing of the sector that doesn't want to suicide

How long you think the game can go on without conscripted consumers and lots of government dollars to bridge the gap between the blood squeezed from the stone and profit targets, in some form or another?

There is a school of thought that insists that things can go on as they have forever or at least for many decades but the math fails to add up in anything like a convincing fashion.

At anything like current growth, the system breaks down as employers fail to be able to carry the load and pools go to hell as more and more drop coverage when it consumes the budget.
The only "answer" is "we've been trying to get reform since Truman" which is true but not relevant to the costs and rate of inflation nor the percentage of the GDP captured by spending in this one sector that is growing well beyond the rest of the economy.

There is a percentage of the economy that the sector can hit that cannot be borne, we can debate what that tipping point is but pretending that number is nonexistent is nonsense.

I think a portion of the "stakeholders" have been seeing disturbing trends for decades and the reason Heritage cooked up this little concept decades ago to deal with it in a manner conducive to sustaining and strengthening the present system and profit centers for as long as any eye can see.

No, Roberts has not had anything like a "Come to Jesus" moment. He just calculated and did what is in the long term interest of money and preserving the system instead of playing the obstruction game out like other TeaPubliKlans.
They don't oppose the bill in general, they oppose it not being them to put it in place, hence the repeal and replace mantra. When pressed, it starts sounding an awful lot like doing the same thing and calling it something different.

Some are quick to dismiss that this is essentially their idea.

[Nye Bevan]

10. He is a very, very smart guy.

He knew what the implications would be if the Supreme Court blocked Obama's signature achievement. Now the heat is off, and he has a much freer reign to pursue other things on his agenda.

[ashling]

11. He ruled on the basis of the tax issue

not whether or not this was allowed under the commerce clause. This gave him the chance to write a long diatribe against the use of the commerce clause. Conservatives have been all bent out of shape forever about the use of the commerce clause. Perhaps he is hoping that he has laid the groundwork for use of his dicta in a future case

[Le Taz Hot]

12. I have a different take.

The Affordable Healthcare Act was a Republican invention in the first place and was put in place to counter single-payer medicare for all. No surprise here. It's a win-win for the insurance companies and big pharma (no price caps).