In Tuesday’s oral arguments, the Supreme Court’s task was to examine the constitutionality of the health insurance mandate at the core of President Obama’s health care law. Though the arguments touched on the limits of the commerce clause and past judicial precedents, much of the discussion was devoted to a series of slippery slope analogies postulated by the Justices and plaintiffs in the case.
In the world envisioned by the Supreme Court, a constitutional insurance mandate could plausibly lead to government mandates of all sorts, including for cell phones and broccoli. Cable news took one step closer to the proverbial slippery slope by imagining the litany of mandates an unrestrained federal government could unleash on the American public.
