Supreme Court justices will not be considering the health law in a vacuum

News reports track some of the justices' issues that will be a part of the consideration of these challenges -- among them, how the case will shape the legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts.  

Bloomberg: Obama-Roberts Legacies To Be Shaped By U.S. High Court Health-Care Ruling
The Supreme Court's review of the U.S. health care overhaul all but guarantees a legacy-shaping ruling for both President Barack Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts. The court's ruling will help determine Obama's political future as he seeks re-election in November. The court could burnish Obama's credentials as a problem-solver or leave him to go before the electorate stripped of his signature legislative achievement. For Roberts, the case stands as the most consequential in his six years as chief justice (Stohr, 11/15).

The Hill: Thomas, Kagan Resist Calls For Recusal
Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan did not recuse themselves from deciding how to handle lawsuits over President Obama's health care law, despite activist groups' calls for them to do so. Conservative groups had called for Kagan to sit out the health care case because she was solicitor general when the solicitor general's office began planning its legal defense of the health care law and its individual mandate. She had previously indicated, however, that she was unlikely to recuse herself from the case (Baker, 11/14).

Los Angeles Times: Scalia And Thomas Dine With Health Care law Challengers As Court Takes Case
The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama's health care law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court (Oliphant, 11/14).

NPR: Supreme Court Sets Historic Showdown For Health Law
The justices may also have chosen the Florida case because the lawyers who represent the parties in the states' case are old hands before the court and well-known for the quality of their work. The justices do take that kind of thing into consideration in choosing among cases, particularly a case like this one with huge economic and political ramifications (Totenberg and Rovner, 11/14).