The fate of President Obama's health care law — as well as the federal subsidies relied upon by millions of Americans to make insurance premiums affordable — likely rests in the hands of two people.
That much was clear Wednesday morning during a tense, 80-minute oral argument inside a packed Supreme Court chamber, where top members of the Obama administration and Congress watched anxiously for the figurative white or black smoke.
What they saw were six justices quite certain about the question at hand: four liberals who clearly believe the law was meant to offer federal tax credits to all comers, and two conservatives who argued it simply doesn't read that way. Justice Clarence Thomas, always silent during oral arguments, is almost certain to take that side.
If virtually every observer's math was correct, that left the government with four votes and opponents of Obamacare with three. That's where Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy come into play.
Roberts, the poker-faced leader of the court now in his 10th year, rescued Obama's signature domestic policy achievement in 2012 on what appeared to be almost a technicality. After deciding that the law violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, Roberts said it could be upheld based on Congress' authority to tax its citizens — in this case, through a penalty for not getting health insurance.
On Wednesday, as justices on the left and right pounced on both of the polished litigators before them — Michael Carvin for the opponents, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli for the government — Roberts maintained an almost stony silence. If he had decided how to vote on the case, he didn't want anyone to know.Read the rest of the story HERE and view related videos below:
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