The broccoli mandate, also known as the broccoli test, broccoli argument, broccoli hypothetical or broccoli horrible, was an argument used by those opposed to

healthcare reform in the United States Healthcare reform in the United States has a long history. Reforms have often been proposed but have rarely been accomplished. In 2010, landmark reform was passed through two federal statutes enacted in 2010: the Patient Protection and Affordab ...

proposed by

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

, who was then the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

Use in 2012 Supreme Court summation

The so-called broccoli mandate was referenced by the conservative Supreme Court Justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectu ...

in 2012, in his summation against healthcare reform. On March 27 of that year, Justice Scalia asked

Donald B. Verrilli Jr. Donald Beaton Verrilli Jr. (born June 29, 1957) is an American lawyer who served as the Solicitor General of the United States from 2011 into 2016. He was sworn into the post on June 9, 2011. On June 6, 2011, the United States Senate confirmed Ve ...

, a lawyer for the

Obama administration Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. A Democrat from Illinois, Obama took office following a decisive victory over Republican ...

, to defend the

individual shared responsibility provision The individual shared responsibility provision, less formally known as the individual mandate, was the health insurance mandate imposed on individuals by the Affordable Care Act in the United States until tax year 2019. This individual mandate requi ...

(commonly called the individual mandate) of the ACA, saying to Verrilli: Opponents of reform – such as Justice Scalia – say that it should not be compulsory for American people to purchase

health insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...

under the

Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...

(ACA) just because it is beneficial, otherwise, an enforcement body could similarly mandate Americans to buy

broccoli Broccoli (''Brassica oleracea'' var. ''italica'') is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus ''Brassica'') whose large flowering head, stalk and small associated leaves are eaten as a vegetable. Broccoli is cl ...

because of its benefits to human health, which they say is an example of over-reaching authority. It has been described as a form of the

slippery slope A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usuall ...

and ''

reductio ad absurdum In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical arguments'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absu ...

'' arguments.Mark D. Rosen and Christopher W. Schmidt,
Why Broccoli? Limiting Principles and Popular Constitutionalism in the Health Care Case
, 61 '' UCLA L. Rev.'' 66 (2013). Supporters of the individual mandate have questioned this analogy. For example, Verrilli told Justice Scalia that the health care market is unique and:

Legacy

Use of the so-called 'broccoli mandate' in the summations of conservative justices in the ''

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius ''National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius'', 567 U.S. 519 (2012), was a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress's power to enact most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Car ...

'' (''NFIB'') case was said to have:

References

{{Reflist American phraseology Law of the United States Brassica Affordable Care Act Metaphors referring to food and drink Food politics

Use in 2012 Supreme Court summation

Legacy

See also

References