Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli took to Capitol Hill to defend the case that the so-called “individual mandate” in the federal health care law is unconstitutional — and found himself talking about broccoli.
Cuccinelli defended Virginia’s challenge to the federal health care law as modest.
“It is the federal government that is asking for a dramatic change to the law, not the states that are challenging the individual mandate,” he said. The mandate requires people to buy health insurance or face a penalty.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, asked Cuccinelli if the state of Virginia could require people to eat broccoli every day.
“I think they could certainly order them to buy broccoli,” Cuccinelli said.
Nadler then said that if the state can exercise that authority, the issue is not a matter of liberty, as Cuccinelli claimed.
Cuccinelli, though, maintained that the case is about liberty, not health care, and that the states have a unique reservoir of authority that the federal government does not.
Cuccinelli is arguing that Congress exceeded its authority to regulate interstate commerce under the law. In Virginia’s case, a federal judge in December ruled that the provision requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. A judge in Florida has since ruled the entire law unconstitutional, while two other federal judges have upheld its constitutionality.
Most expect the matter to ultimately end up before the Supreme Court; Cuccinelli recently petitioned the country’s highest court to fast-track Virginia’s case.
