Can The Government Force You To Eat Broccoli?

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 After all, if a government can order you to buy insurance, what can’t it do?

This article is by Cato’s Michael Tanner who writes on health care issues.

The Broccoli Test

By Michael Tanner

We should give it to the GOP presidential candidates.

Call it the broccoli test.

During oral arguments before the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the constitutionality of Obamacare’s health-insurance mandate, the Obama administration’s lawyer, Beth Brinkmann, was asked whether a federal law requiring all Americans to eat broccoli would be constitutional.

“It depends,” she replied. But she could certainly envision cases where it would be.

That makes her only slightly less certain than Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, who was asked the same question during her confirmation hearings. Kagan, who will help decide the fate of Obamacare’s mandate, had no doubts that a broccoli mandate would be constitutional.

Of course, it is unlikely that Congress will be mandating eating broccoli anytime soon — though given the Obama administration’s ongoing concern over what we eat, who knows? But it perfectly illustrates the stakes in the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the mandate’s constitutionality.

The Left wants to pretend that this is just a case about health-care policy. You can’t get to universal coverage without a mandate, they warn. Striking down the mandate may leave millions uninsured.

Those claims are debatable to say the least. But the question of the mandate is much bigger than health policy, good or bad. How the court decides will fundamentally define the boundary between government power and individual autonomy.

After all, if a government can order you to buy insurance, what can’t it do?