Did minority's uncompromising insistence on invalidating entire law push Roberts to join moderates..

Health Care Dissent: Here's What The Conservative Wing Wanted To Happen

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney, reacting to the Supreme Court's health care ruling Thursday, said, "I agree with the dissent."

The dissent tosses out the entire health care law, dismissing the case for it as "feeble" and a "vast judicial overreach." It argues that "against a mountain of evidence," its backers offer only the "flimsiest of indications to the contrary."

Four of the five Republican appointees on the Court agreed with this interpretation, and it would have carried the day if Chief Justice John Roberts had joined them. Had he done so, the "entire statute" -- meaning the entire law, from beginning to end -- would have been invalidated, including provisions that had already gone into effect. Strangely, the dissenting justices argue that even constitutional provisions must be ruled unconstitutional because "the Act’s other provisions would not have been enacted without" it central elements, the mandate and the Medicaid provision. The justices never reveal how they know what would have happened in the alternate reality they posit.

Did the minority's uncompromising insistence on invalidating the entire law push Roberts to join the moderates in upholding it? We won't know until the next tell-all book on the court, but below are excerpts from the dissent, signed by Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia.

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Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/28/health-care-dissent_n_1634514.html