The four dissenters wrote it together. It's a joint opinion, but only one judge writes it. The others concur.

No. One of them may have written it, but there is no way to know which one from the face of the decision, unlike with the Roberts and Ginsburg decisions (and with many decisions of the court). it has been released as a joint authorship. You may want to actually look at the decision before commenting on it.

For what it's worth, Kennedy was the one who read the dissent in Court today. That's why I assumed he wrote the dissent.

The dangers of breaking news: image://www-deadline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/FoxNews_Obamacare__120628154913.jpg image://www-deadline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/CNN_Obamacare__120628154939.png

No. One of them may have written it, but there is no way to know which one from the face of the decision, unlike with the Roberts and Ginsburg decisions (and with many decisions of the court). it has been released as a joint authorship. You may want to actually look at the decision before commenting on it. “In the case of the Affordable Care Act, Congress went to great lengths to structure the mandate as a penalty, not a tax,” Kennedy wrote for the dissenters. “But the majority now says that it is a tax, at least for the purpose of sustaining it.” - http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/28/154187/supreme-court-upholds-health-care.html

No. One of them may have written it, but there is no way to know which one from the face of the decision, unlike with the Roberts and Ginsburg decisions (and with many decisions of the court). it has been released as a joint authorship. Ryan is right. It was a joint opinion. Further, it isn't even necessarily the case the one of them wrote this. It was likely a collaborative effort. Kennedy's reading it from the bench could mean nothing more than that the four of them wanted to highlight him since he's viewed as the "swing" justice.

McClatchy is either wrong or they have inside access to the court, but for historical purposes it was jointly authored.

Big win for Obama. Bigger win for insurance companies.

As much as I don't like the mandate in theory, in practice I don't think it will matter that much. Very few extra people will be buying health insurance. Most of the uninsured will go on Medicaid.

Now there is some speculation that Roberts may have inititally voted to strike down the mandate entirely, but later changed his mind during the drafting and circulation of opinions. The dissenting opinion in a few places refers to Justice Gingburg's opinion as a "dissent," which it was not. Unclear whether this is referencing her specific disagreements with Roberts on commerce power, or whether her entire opinion was originally a dissent. Interesting, and I'm very much looking forward to finding out how these deliberations unfolded, though it may be years before we learn.

The more I reflect on this, the more I'm starting to think that Roberts may be the most brilliant mind to join the Court since John Marshall.

How so?

And the spin for Roberts' vote begins.

He upheld the government's action while overturning their reasoning, bearing powerful political ramifications, and he revitalized the small government rallying point while sustaining the prestige of the Court at the expense of his own. It's a Marbury-esque, lose the battle win the war, master-stroke. Whether I'm right, we'll know in November.

The spin I'm hearing is that Roberts did this on purpose to help Romney because he still needed the mandate as a campaign issue. I can't fathom a more preposterous notion.

Ah yes, the stage of grief where a loss is actually part of a brilliant, masterful plan for ultimate victory.

He upheld the government's action while overturning their reasoning, bearing powerful political ramifications, and he revitalized the small government rallying point while sustaining the prestige of the Court at the expense of his own. Roberts improved the prestige of both the Court and himself by not being a Republican hack.

There are sincere Constitutional grounds to oppose the individual mandate, among other aspects of the legislation. You disagree. That's fine. The Court apparently saw it your way. However, that doesn't make me or anybody else a "Republican hack."

Agreed. Kennedy is a good example of how a principled jurist can reach an entirely different result than the one the Court endorsed.

However, that doesn't make me or anybody else a "Republican hack." One doesn't become a Republican hack by disagreeing with me; one becomes a Republican hack by ignoring Court precedent (or even one's own) to reverse engineer a politically desired ruling. Ginsburg included citation of Scalia's concurrence in Raich to point out his monumental hackitude.

Scalia is a pure politician. That really ought to be clear after his dissent in Arizona v. U.S. for anyone to whom it wasn't already.

Major fail. It was like the Supreme Court just gave the US economy a permanent F-U.

Well, no. But even if we accept your premise, it's not the Court's domain to decide what's good for the economy - just to find what the government can and cannot do.

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From a Conservative point of view there are a few good points to this ruling: 1) Since the healthcare law is now a "tax" most of its provisions can be repealed via budget reconciliation so Republicans do not need to overcome a 60 vote filibuster 2) This ruling limits the Commerce Clause potentially restricting the growth of future social programs 3) By striking down the forced expansion of Medicaid, this ruling limits the Fed's ability to coerce states to expand social programs.