I apologize for not replying earlier but old folks have to get some sleep.
My entire objection is that, while the Chief Justice talks about judicial restraint, he did exactly the opposite. The law as enacted by congress provided only for subsudies in cases where policies were issued through “state” exchanges. The Executive Branch changed that to define “federal” exchanges as eligible and the court decision upheld the executive change.
The plantiffs in this case did not ask the court to toss the entire statute or even a part of it. Quite to the contrary, they asked the court to uphold the statute exactly as written by congress. To expect Congress to enact a new law specifying that they really intended the law to say exactly what it said would be standing the whole constitutional construct on it’s head.
The Court upheld the Executive Branch in it regulatory expansion of subsidies to federal exchanges alhough the statute enacted by Congress only provided such subsidies in state exchanges. The Chief Justice based his decision on the idea that Congress intended good results from the law but since enforcement as written would result in bad results the Executive was justified in going beyond the written word. That is the exact opposite of judicial restraint.
Actually from reading the opinion Robert’s makes it quite clear that in his view should the Court adopt the reading of ACA claimed by the Plaintiff’s then the law would be unworkable. He writes its illogical to assume the Congress would pass a law that is unworkable on its face. (He no doubt gives the current Congress to much credit)
Again he is not going to do the work of the legislative branch in his Court. The GOP can bring suit after suit and pay lawyers and give those opposing the law false hope but they will all be DOA.
The statute will be changed in Congress not in the Courts.