Wait, what the what? Looks like I was wrong, but it's worth considering why I was wrong. I was right that every member of the court who voted against the individual mandate also ordered the entire law thrown out, which makes zero sense to anyone who wasn't interested in protecting insurance companies over maintaining the integrity of the legal system.
I'm wondering if such naked disgregard for not just precedent but also process was too much for Roberts. Declaring the mandate unconstitutional was from what I can gather utterly ridiculous (James Fallows recently asked 21 constitutional scholars about this; 19 affirmed its constitutionality, which still seems low, but they're the ones who know what they're doing). Claiming the law could not exist with the mandate removed is simple bullshit. Alito (a hack), Thomas (a corrupt hack) and Scalia (a corrupt hack who hates you for not being as smart as he is) along with Kennedy (a weathervane placed in a windy corner to allow him to cower even as he spins) may finally have gone too far in embarrassing the court for even so callous a Chief Justice as Roberts to tolerate. After all, he's the only person voting here that has something to consider other than his own reputation.
In a parallel universe, Scalia's Angels voted only to strike down the mandate, and Roberts happily piled on. It's not often I say this, but thank the gods for Republican arrogance.
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