The Washington Post concludes, in an editorial, that the state attorneys general have a case,* but that the federal government has a “strong defense”:

… health insurance is a commodity, and a consumer who sits on the sidelines has a significant impact on the market.

Couldn’t the same be said of any commodity? That the consumer who “sits on the sidelines” (who, in other words, chooses not to buy a good or service) is having an impact on the market? The citizen who chooses not to subscribe to National Review is having a significant impact on the market for National Review. Could Congress, invoking its Commerce Clause authority, force everyone in America to subscribe?

My guess is that the Post would say no, because making everyone subscribe to National Review would serve no “legitimate public purpose” (reasonable people can disagree on this question!):

And the federal government’s interest in that market functioning efficiently to provide health-care access to all is undoubtedly a legitimate public purpose. So the case is not as clear-cut as many legal scholars have argued, but the federal government has a strong defense.

For most of our nation’s history, Congress has been very concerned with propping up the prices of agricultural commodities. This is a legitimate public purpose, by the Post’s broad definition: If America’s farmers cannot get a good price for their products, the argument goes, they might all go out of business, and Americans would be without a domestic source of food and fiber, which would threaten our “access” to these things. (I know this wouldn’t really happen — just bear with me.)

Of all the schemes the government has dreamt up in the service of this goal (usually involving artificial scarcity, such as the slaughtering of millions of hogs in the 1930s) none have required every American citizen to purchase a certain amount of corn, wheat, cotton, etc. — though that would surely be one way to support high prices. But if the individual mandate is allowed, Congress would theoretically have the power to implement the following plan: Each citizen each year must buy a basket of U.S. farm commodities — perhaps he could choose among the gold, silver, or bronze baskets — and he would receive subsidies if his income fell below a certain level.

In addition to propping up commodity prices and “stabilizing” the agricultural market, the plan would give the government the power to set some “basic standards” for American diets, to make sure that every American family was eating balanced meals, staying healthy and — voila! — costing the health-care system less. Seriously, why couldn’t Congress pass this law right now, under the precedent set by Obamacare?

* (In case you missed it, I interviewed Texas state attorney general Greg Abbott for a piece on the lawsuit that ran yesterday.)