Why would he have bothered with all that subterfuge, when by his vote the entire law could have been struck down? In his opinion Roberts states that it is the court’s duty to preserve unconstitutional law. Where the hell does that come from?
Without Roberts’ vote, the count would have been five and four. The little Mall Cop Paul Blart character Elena Kagan SHOULD have recused herself from this vote, which would have then made the final vote 4-4, a hung decision. But siding with the majority, even though so many think that a travesty in and of itself, assured the deadlock would not happen.
Moving on from that, this decision is open to so many different way of dealing with the outcome. Like that of the Dred Scott decision, eventually the result was the 14th Amendment, but not until after a civil war ripped the nation at its seams, and enormous amounts of strife had to be endured.
The mandate is now legally declared to be a tax, and not an exercise of the Commerce Clause. Taxes, the Congress of the United States is prepared to deal with. And since an increase in taxes is a highly unpopular item right now, fighting for the repeal of Obamacare in the name of lowering taxes on everybody, not just the wealthy, as the Democrats are so fond of prating about, has to have a much wider appeal than first thought.
“Preservation of unconstitutional law” is simply the Court’s reluctance to reverse itself - ever. Hark back to the Dredd Scott decision: Theoretically, until the passage of the 14th Amendment, persons of African descent, even though freed from slavery, could not be US citizens, regardless of place of birth. The decision itself was never reversed.