What about the broccoli?

How soon before Congress does the unthinkable. How soon before Congress takes the step that Justice Scalia warned us of. “Everybody has to buy food, therefore you can make people buy broccoli,” said Scalia. (AP Photo/file)

If you read the actual TEXT of today’s health care decision, it sounds at first like the court is striking down the mandate to buy health insurance. Because Justice Roberts writes that it cannot be justified under the Commerce Clause. But then, in a plot twist, he goes on to say it doesn’t NEED the Commerce Clause because it can be construed as a tax, and Congress clearly has the power to tax.

This very point came up in the oral arguments, when Justice Sotomayor got the opposition lawyer to admit this.

Sotomayor: Congress can tax everybody and set up a public health care system?

Lawyer: Yes

Taxing power is well-established.

So the mandate stands, 5-4.

And notice — stocks of hospital companies immediately moved sharply higher — why? Because ultimately that’s what this is about: paying hospitals. By law hospitals can’t just let poor people die, but they also can’t make poor people pay. Under the now-upheld health care laws almost all patients who come in the door, rich OR poor, will be able to pay.

But now — the big unanswered question. How soon until the sky fall. How soon before Congress does the unthinkable. How soon before Congress takes the step that Justice Scalia warned us of.

“Everybody has to buy food, therefore you can make people buy broccoli,” said Scalia.

What about the broccoli? Well that’s why we’re having an election.