The decision of usually conservative Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to join the court’s moderate to liberal bloc to uphold the politically explosive health care law of 2010 could define a court he may lead for years, even decades, to come.
The high court has been viewed increasingly as merely another partisan-riven institution of government, causing it to suffer diminished public esteem, according to polling data. That despite Roberts’s declaration during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing that he would be the equivalent of an umpire, applying the law, not making it.
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Justice Roberts has done, on this occasion, a real service to the American public. His opinion preserves the work of Congress as constitutional. It also paves the way to needed improvements. When the bill was in its infancy, to console the Republican members of Congress and their health industry backers the mandate was fashioned. The conservatives also demanded a penalty if you did not buy health insurance if you could afford it. So both these congressional opposition demands were met. They then they turn around and vote against the law. They managed to push imperfection into how we pay health insurance by splitting the risk pool. They later objected to their own creation. Their real intentions were always to be destructive of any reform. They wanted to preserve undeserved profits for insurers. They also wanted to have some basis to strike down the law in the courts if the law had any control over how much insurers could charge. The law set operational cost at 20% of premiums, still too high, but a step in the right direction and the ability to return to lower that number. Medicare operates on 5% overhead. They did not succeed in striking down this passed act because the Chief Justice understood it is not the job of the Supreme Court to get rid of major legislation. However it directed the legislators to understand that the taxing power of Congress is the correct approach to pay for such national programs. In a way he seems to endorse that some single payer plan is more in line with the Constitution that the Rube Goldberg machine the legislators built to satisfy the industry lobbyists. I agree with Chief Justice Roberts's wisdom. He did good.
History will regard him highly.
I really like your Rube Goldberg analogy. My description in past posts has described it as Ptolemaic but more people can relate to your assessment. Now that I think of it, not many astronomers will read my post. But I like the wit of both.
Right or wrong, Roberts made his decision based on his undertanding of the law, not on a political bent of mind. Kudos, to him.