Excerpt:
"One early exchange between Verrilli and the chief justice featured John Roberts following a similar line of logic related to a single-payer system. The solicitor made the argument that “people cannot generally control when they enter that market or what they need when they enter that market,” prompting this response from Roberts:
Well, the same, it seems to me, would be true say for the market in emergency services: police, fire, ambulance, roadside assistance, whatever. You don’t know when you’re going to need it; you’re not sure that you will. … So can the government require you to buy a cell phone because that would facilitate responding when you need emergency services? You can just dial 911 no matter where you are?
In that analogy, health care is to police, fire, and ambulance what health insurance is to a cell phone. It’s an interesting counter for Verrilli to have to parry, since his boss Barack Obama and many on the left initially opposed the mandate, and many on left in another day and age might have agreed with Roberts that health care is analogous to police and fire—a public good that is best provided by the government, since it’s a service everyone requires."
