people find out what they have done.

I'm sure the helicopters and limos will be waiting outside the door to wisk them far away as soon as the decision is announced.

Maybe they know (deep down inside past their corporate beholden duty) from their days studying law that they are going to do something they shouldnt do.

Oh, and by that I mean overturn any portion that would help Obama or The People at large. The SC is now a tool of the Reich wing Corporate plutocrats.

Well, maybe not "best" but the most high-profile ones are always announced last.

My guess is the delay allows the administration to help sooth the inevitable instability/chaos/panic that will result.

Really?

This will be a huge decision, regardless of which way it goes. The Court always reserves issuing decisions on the significant cases until the end of the term.

Because I do. Nobody knows, but I think it will be bad.

maybe it isn't the end of the world, since it is far from perfect, anyway.
I have a feeling the SC will strike it down.

It has passed, there are a few of its mandates that have already come in to effect, if it gets struck down, the cost to tax payers as well as the increase in insurance that would result to this would most likely be close to catastrophic.

I want some stabilization in this before anything else. If it gets improved, then I am all for it, but to arbitrarily cut down something like the ACA which is a 50K page cluster-f, they have no idea what their meddling will cause.

I'd rather them work on it in a legislative manner.

another major health plan for another couple decades, if this fails.

If this passes Constitutional muster, then Congress can work on improving it. If we have a more liberal Congress, they could add a public option.

But if it fails, no major health plan will be forthcoming for a long, long time.

They are deciding a ton of stuff in this case. So there will be a ton of opinions written (maybe even all nine!). Some will dissent and concur with others, some will explain their own positions. There is a chance that several will be read at the announcement on Thursday (like several dissents today).

Honestly, my gut tells me that it does not bode will for the mandate, but might bode well for the rest of the bill (so the middle option). If it was upheld in total, it would be a fairly simple thing (with Scalia and Thomas, of course, offering "blistering" dissents). So the fact that they all but cleared the decks before Thursday might mean it's going to be a long conference result announcement.

It can be a drawn out process where there are a lot of dissenting and concurring opinions (and opinions dissenting in part and concurring in part). Justices review each other's opinions before whether to sign on (in whole or in part) to another opinion or whether to write their own. While the Chief Justice can try to move things along by setting a deadline, as a matter of comity, in a major case with a lot of opinions being crafted, the Chief typically gives everyone the maximum amount of time possible to review and edit their opinions (which includes editing them to respond to points made in other justice's opinions).

Its not grandstanding.

It makes them feel really important.