In the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse cautioned, “The court has permitted itself to be recruited into the front lines of the partisan war. Not only the Affordable Care Act but the court itself is in peril as a result.” She continued: “The fate of the statute hung in the balance [with National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius] and hangs in the balance today, but…[t]his time, so does the honor of the Supreme Court.” Any justice who rules in favor of the challengers in King v. Burwell, Greenhouse admonished, will “have a great deal of explaining to do.”

Ruth Marcus warned in the Washington Post a ruling against the administration would “embody the judicial activism the conservatives repeatedly disavow, elevating policy antipathy to the health-care law over settled legal principles.” The Post’s Supreme Court correspondent Robert Barnes wrote, “[T]he eponymous head of the Roberts court has the most to lose. After all, its decisions cannot be respected if the court is not respected.”

ThinkProgress Editor Ian Millhiser predicted, “Should Roberts turn around and gut Obamacare in King, he would only confirm many people’s fears that the Supreme Court has become the judicial wing of the Republican Party.” In “9 Judges, 9 Million Lives,” a video produced by the Center for American Progress, health law scholar Timothy Jost claimed, “A 5-4 decision invalidating the premium tax credits would seriously call into question the legitimacy of the Court…I think it’s going to be [decided] pretty transparently for political reasons.” And in the subtly-titled “Americans Will Know Who to Blame if the Roberts Court Wrecks Our Healthcare System,” Paul Gordon wrote for The Huffington Post, this Court has “a history of bending the rules, twisting the law, and doing whatever it takes to get to an outcome beneficial to conservative and corporate interests.”