Before Tuesday, most legal analysts seemed to agree that the Supreme Court would probably uphold health care reform’s individual mandate — even if the conservative justices had to hold their noses to do it. 
 
 Just minutes into the oral argument Tuesday, that conventional wisdom fell apart. 
 
 Text Size - 
 
 + 
 
 reset 
 
 All of the conservative justices asked such tough questions about the individual mandate during Tuesday’s arguments that it’s no longer clear that the Obama administration can get a fifth vote to uphold it. 
 
 Even Justice Anthony Kennedy — the swing vote everyone was watching — signaled that he has serious doubts about the mandate. That became clear early in the session, when he asked Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. if the government could require purchase of certain food. 
 
 “Here the government is saying the federal government has a duty to tell citizens it must act,” Kennedy said. That changes the relationship between the government and the person “in a fundamental way.” 
 
 And even though Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to agree with the government that all people will consume health care at some point in their lives, he worried that the health care law would open the door to many other mandates. 
 
 Roberts argued that if the court says Congress can regulate anything people buy just because of how they pay for it, “all bets are off.” Today it is health insurance, he said, and then “something else in the next case.” 
 
 “Once we accept the principle, I don’t see why Congress’s power is limited,” Roberts said. 
 
 The most famous hypothetical purchase before Tuesday was broccoli. On Tuesday, the justices peppered Verrilli with questions about the mandatory purchase of cellphones, gym memberships and burial insurance. 
 
 The tone of the questions has made legal observers more doubtful that the court will uphold the mandate. Sometimes, the justices just ask tough questions to draw out the best defense of the law. 
 
 But these ones were really tough. 
 
 “This was a train wreck for the Obama administration,” CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said moments after the arguments ended. “This law looks like it’s going to be struck down. I’m telling you, all of the predictions including mine that the justices would not have a problem with this law were wrong.” 
 
 And SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein — who predicted at a POLITICO Pro panel discussion last week that the court would likely uphold the law — wrote that there was “no fifth vote” yet. 
 
 “If Justice Anthony M. Kennedy can locate a limiting principle in the federal government’s defense of the new individual health insurance mandate, or can think of one on his own, the mandate may well survive,” Goldstein wrote. “If he does, he may take Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., along with him. But if he does not, the mandate is gone.” 
 
 This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 1:02 p.m. on March 27, 2012. ||||| Topics: War Room, Politics News 
 
 The verdict is in: The individual mandate at the heart of President Obama’s healthcare law is not long for this world. 
 
 At least that seemed to be the early consensus of the journalists who were allowed to witness the second day of Supreme Court arguments over the constitutionality of Obamacare on Tuesday. Even before the proceedings wrapped up, they began spreading the word that Obama’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, had seemed ill-prepared and incapable of defending the law against an onslaught of pointed questions from skeptical justices, and that the critical swing voter on the court – Anthony Kennedy – had all but stated that he considers the mandate unconstitutional. 
 
 CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin branded the proceedings “a train wreck for the Obama administration” and predicted that “this law looks like it’s going to be struck down,” while Mother Jones’ Adam Serwer declared on Twitter that “If the justices decided the constitutionality of laws on performance, Obamacare would go down like a flaming zeppelin.” Mike Sacks of the Huffington Post said that opposition to the law seemed “almost unequivocal” from Kennedy, whom Toobin called a “lost cause” for the administration. 
 
 It’s worth keeping in mind that all of this alarmism may well amount to nothing. 
 
 The stakes of this case and the court’s notorious opacity encourage tea leaf-reading and overreaction. It’s clear from objective reports from inside the court that the administration was repeatedly put on the defensive by Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. Along with Clarence Thomas, who rarely speaks but almost always sides with his fellow Republican-appointed justices, they form the court’s conservative majority – with Kennedy the most likely to break ranks. So it’s noteworthy that they (and Kennedy in particular) exhibited such aggressive skepticism. The individual mandate won’t stand unless at least one of them sides with the administration.
– Based on the breathless commentary after the Supreme Court's oral arguments today, it might have seemed as if the court had already decided to rule against health care reform. Sorry to spoil the fun, but it's way too early for either side to think this is a done deal, writes Steve Kornacki at Salon. "All of this alarmism may well amount to nothing." Yes, Anthony Kennedy sounded skeptical about the individual mandate, for example, but Kornacki points to a detailed recap of arguments by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog suggesting that Kennedy's opposition isn't as solid as thought. "That is where Tuesday’s argument wound up—with Kennedy, after first displaying a very deep skepticism, leaving the impression that he might yet be the mandate’s savior," writes Denniston. And don't be shocked if John Roberts ends up agreeing with him, he adds. "The court isn’t expected to rule for months, maybe not until late June," adds Kornacki in his post. "It’s entirely possible that the mandate will be thrown out, but it’s all still guesswork until then." Read his full column here. Or check out the audio recordings of the arguments for yourself here.