Originally, Roberts was going to strike down the indiividual mandate of the ACA.

[No Elephants]

Again, note the misleading headline.

ACA as a whole was not upheld. The individual mandate was upheld, while the way to enforce Medicaid expansion was struck down. So far, all media, even Stewart and Colbert, have spoken as though the entire law was in jeopardy, and the entire law was upheld.

It ain't necessarily so.

Lord forgive me, but I hate our propaganda machine mainstream media.

July 1, 2012 1:29 PM

Roberts switched views to uphold health care law

(CBS News) Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

"He was relentless," one source said of Kennedy's efforts. "He was very engaged in this."

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, "You're on your own."

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57464549/roberts-switched-views-to-uphold-health-care-law/?tag=pop;stories

Guess the Court has finally become as "leaky" as the other two branches.

Integrity in D.C. is AWOL.

[rocktivity]

1. HIT PIECE ALERT!!!

ACA mandate bad, rest of ACA good: THAT was Roberts' "original position!"

The "leaks" were an attempt to intimidate Roberts into changing his mind and join the conservatives in striking down ACA in its entirety. And the main leakers were most likely Scalia and/or Kennedy.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[No Elephants]

2. Not really. As the OP says, the ACA in its entirety was never before the Court.

And the OP article was published after decision was announced, so it was not about making Roberts decide both points that were before the Court in any particular way, though the initial leaks from the Court may have been for that purpose.

Besides, isn't the issue for us whether the facts in the story are true or not? Allegedly, Roberts wrote both the majority opinion AND most of the dissenting opinion. And, reading the opinions suggest that is true, for various reasons--including a bizarre reference to Ginsburg's dissenting opinion.



The only parts of the ACA that were before theSupreme Court for a ruling on their Constitutionality were the individual mandate and the provision about the feds' cutting off all medicaid funds to states that did not accept the ACA's expansion of Medicaid.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-supreme-court-health-care-ruling-20120628-pdf,0,5541841.htmlpage

most of the headlines on the decision are misleading.




The only things the SCOTUS decides on are the things the litigants bring before the Court.

Therefore, the ACA was never up to be either upheld in its entirety nor struck down in its entirety.




Of the two provisions that were before the Court, one was upheld and one was struck down.

Roberts crossed party lines to uphold the ability of the federal government to impose just about anything on individuals, if called a tax, while two Democratic appointees crossed party lines to strike down the Medicaid expansion provision.

Along the way, the ability of the feds to use the Commerce Clause was limited for the first time since maybe FDR's court-packing plan.




Exactly the opposite of what should have been done, and not consistent with almost 250 of individual rights decisions and almost a century of commerce clause decisions.

All around, bad bad precedent for individual rights and federal power and the Democrats and great precedent for conservatives.

And, if it is true that any part of any Justice's motivation was to improve the polls on the SCOTUS, very bad for the SCOTUS and the nation all around.



We have a conservative court making the worst possible decisions for America it could have made on a health care plan that originated in a conservative think tank and was made worse by the health insurers, big PhRMA and big health care providers.

Both individual rights and health care for poor people got screwed by that SCOTUS decision and perhaps for the remaining history of our nation, but undoubtedly long beyond January 2017.

But our national politics are so bizarre that Democrats are cheering this decision and conservatives are booing it because everyone seems to think everything is about Obama and only Obama, not the American people or the Constitution or a century of Democratic principles.

[No Elephants]

3. Too late to edit again, but the last paragraph of my Reply 2 was directed at only

professional politicians and professional pundits, not to Rocktivity or any other DUer. (I was listening to Ed Shultz and Lawrence O'Donnell right before I wrote Reply 2 and we all the announcement by conservatives about their first priority being to get a Republican into office in January 2013.)