U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was lambasted as a turncoat, traitor and betrayer by conservatives when he cast the deciding fifth vote in 2012 upholding the constitutional soundness of the Affordable Care Act. This allowed states and the federal government to put in an array of measures to fully implement the act. That didn’t end the matter.

Conservatives dug deep and found a provision buried in the law that purports that only states and not the federal government can set up insurance exchanges. The case is King vs. Burwell. If the court upholds the challenge, it would nullify the subsidies in the form of IRS approved tax credits that the millions of people who signed up for coverage in those states receive.

The case is far more than just another of the never-ending challenges to the act. It’s a politically loaded challenge to President Obama. The GOP and conservatives bank on its four trump cards on the court — Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and yes, Chief Justice Roberts, to gut the act.

Earl O. Hutchinson

They may get their wish this time with the chief justice. Despite his momentary defection in upholding the law three years ago, he and the other three justices, along with Justice Anthony Kennedy, have turned the number 5 to 4 into a fine art. That’s their reflexive vote against any and every Obama administration position, initiative or piece of legislation that’s challenged and winds up before the court.

In the Hobby Lobby ruling they, and Justice Kennedy, ruled that privately held corporations can refuse on religious grounds to cover the cost of contraceptives for its employees. It was a blow to the Act. The ruling, though, was the standard template for the war on President Obama.

In a majority of cases, Chief Justice Roberts and the other conservatives have ruled against the Obama administration’s position on the big ticket issues of voting rights, affirmative action, corporate and property rights and union and environmental protections. Their assault has had little to do with the law, and everything to do with politics and ideology. Their decisions against him are blatant partisan political pandering.

On the campaign trail in 2000, George W. Bush was asked what kind of judge he’d look for and nominate if he were to be elected president. He didn’t hesitate. He pledged to appoint “strict constructionists” to the court and specifically named Justices Thomas, Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist as the judges that perfectly fit that description. By then, the three had already carved out a hard-line niche as three of the most reflexive, knee-jerk, reactionary jurists to grace the court in decades.

In the King vs. Burwell case, the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute and the litigious Competitive Enterprise Institute are running the point on the case. They bank on two things to get the court to hack saw the act. One is the inherent partisan political bias of Chief Justice Roberts and the other three judges. The other is that they will adhere unbendingly to the narrow of narrowest, strict constructionist reading of the law. They will hold that the four words “established by the states,” which is in the wording of the act, makes no mention of the federal government establishing buyer exchanges complete with subsidies. The Obama administration correctly argues that the court should follow the plain sense text of the law and prior precedents, which clearly permit tax credits to individuals whether the exchanges are state established or established by the federal government.

If the judges, joined by Justice Kennedy, indeed act according to the expected script, it will be another notch in the GOP’s hit plan on Obamacare. Beyond that, it will stand as yet another in the long train of crude, cynical political ploys to inflame millions of Americans and stoke hostility toward President Obama and the Democrats. This could sharpen the already considerable political edge the GOP got when it grabbed the Senate and tightened its grip on the House in the 2014 midterm elections. A court victory on Obamacare could give it even more momentum in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections.

The big loser in this cynical knock at President Obama will be the millions of people who potentially could lose their coverage in the 34 states with federally established exchanges. That’s of little importance to the GOP and their reliable four justices who have waged ruthless war against President Obama. The issue for both in this case, as always, is not Obamacare, but President Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst.