Just Before I Take My Break

Wow! And I thought I used too many words. Just joking, but we lawyers like to think we have more words at our disposal than anyone else.
There is nothing you say, Anonymous, that I don't agree with.
Well, maybe a little with the remark about 9 Justices in a room. It takes a lot of analysis and argument and searching case law and applying law to facts and all the rest to get a decent opinion even in a fairly easy case, so when the case is one of first impression because the Court has never had the exact question of constitutionality asked before - it takes a lot of words. And, boy, are we lawyers good at that.
The Obamacare decision can be summarized in very few words:
The law is unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause. But it is constitutional because the payment that "saves" the Mandate to buy health insurance can be construed to be a tax, and taxes are constitutional while penalties are not because they are punitive.
Where the words and detail comes in is when other facts are applied to the words in the decision. And that, as you rightly say, is the matter for lawyers. But, I always have tried to live by the rule in my practice that says that if you cannot explain your decision or position on one page, you don't really understand the problem. One of my law professors drove that principle into our heads every day.
With my blog, I get a break, because the "page" is expandable...and no, there's no fee for extra words.
To put it more succinctly, you don't really understand anything until you can explain it to your grandmother and she understands.