by KIM KRISBERG
Broccoli. A nutritious green veggie of the cabbage family? Or a symbol of the federal government’s over-reaching power grab? Like most things in life, it all depends on your perspective.
I’ve been thinking about that word — broccoli — since last month’s Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of provisions within the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Specifically, I’ve been pondering this comment from Justice Antonin Scalia during arguments on the ACA’s individual insurance mandate:
SCALIA: . . . could you define the market — everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food. Therefore, everybody’s in the market. Therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.
I’ll leave it to the lawyers to parse out the difference between broccoli and insurance. (Jack Balkin also has a great post on this.) What intrigued me was the word itself — broccoli. It certainly didn’t invoke thoughts of salads and well-balanced diets; its meaning within this particular debate had already been solidly defined and framed. In the context of health reform, the broccoli comparison means one thing only: the threat of an encroaching nanny state. In other words, broccoli is a talking point and an emotionally powerful one at that.
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