That, supposedly, was his objective in that stupid decision.
But this is contradicted by his comment that it is not the job of the Court to save people from their bad political choices. IMHO, it’s a ridiculous comment, because that has always been the job of the Court. Bad political choices result in bad laws, and it is the job of the Court to review these in the light of the Constitution.
I honestly don’t think he had some sort of Machiavellian plan going. I think that he was somehow intimidated on a personal level - and it could merely have been that he didn’t want to be the target of Obama’s vicious rhetoric for the rest of his life - and his decision was intended to placate Obama while at the same time, by declaring it a tax, to open the door just a little to some other way of dealing with the problem.
Unfortunately, nobody has taken up the issue of the unconstitutionally created tax and in fact the largely unconstitutional way in which the law was created and has been enforced.
The Dems are going to do just fine with Obamacare, because they are already working on the narrative that it would be wonderful except that the evil GOP somehow blocked it. Personally, I think they’re probably going to sweep the 2014 elections specifically on the basis of Obamacare and the idea that we must become a one-party system in order to “get anything done.” And Roberts will actually have contributed to this.
It would be far better to say that the Court's foremost job is to see that the Constitution is upheld, just as it should be for every other branch.