WASHINGTON — Can the federal government require you to eat broccoli?

To opponents of the Affordable Care Act, the requirement that all U.S. citizens buy health insurance sets a precedent that could be abused in the future — from mandating the purchase of solar panels to leafy greens.

To proponents of the national law facing Supreme Court scrutiny this week, health care is a unique marketplace that virtually every American — even the homeless guy living under a bridge — intersects at some point, so requiring everyone to contribute is constitutionally justified.

The health care law, passed two years ago, attempts to extend health insurance for more than 30 million Americans by growing Medicaid, an existing health insurance program for low-income people under 65.

Although there are three days of legal arguments starting Monday, the one with the most intrigue for legal scholars is Tuesday's debate on the challenge to the so-called individual mandate, which requires every U.S. citizen to purchase health insurance.

This is important because if it is not affirmed by the high court, it would likely unravel other more popular parts of the Affordable Care Act already in place, like the requirement that insurance companies take on patients with pre-existing conditions.

Colorado is one of the 26 states challenging the constitutionality of the national law. State Attorney General John Suthers said he has worried from the beginning that the individual mandate is a threat to freedom.

"We'd be moving into a whole new world," said Suthers, who will be in the Supreme Court chambers this week in Washington to hear the arguments. "It's saying if you don't buy what we tell you to buy, we'll fine you."

But those supporting the Obama administration's argument say health care is different than, say, requiring people to buy solar panels.

The reason the law was pushed to begin with was because health care costs were spiraling higher for private citizens and the government alike. Some of those increasing costs were driven by a growing number of uninsured people who didn't have a place to access the health care system and would show up in emergency rooms.

"This is an industry that affects virtually everyone in the United States," said Ed Kahn, a lawyer and former constitutional law professor at the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

Melissa Hart, a professor at the University of Colorado law school, agreed.

"By being alive, you are a part of the health care market," she said.

The emergency-room argument rings hollow to Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a constitutionally conservative organization based in Washington.

"Their big argument is that it guards against free-riders, but the emergency room requirement is a federal law. We could change the federal law," Fitton said. Federal law mandates that an emergency room cannot turn away a patient who seeks emergency treatment there.

"The health care you get from emergency rooms is limited. It's not like you go in and are treated for cancer for a long time," he said.

Proponents of the new law point to 1942, when the federal government required farmers to buy wheat from the open market, rather than grow it themselves. It was another time the government required people to purchase something for the greater good, and the case was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The argument that Congress can't require someone to do something is pretty specious," Kahn said. "It can require you to pay the gasoline tax, it can require you to pay a tax on electricity, it can regulate where electricity can be purchased and where it can't. I think this argument that they can't require you to engage in commerce is pretty ridiculous."
