George Washington would like a word with you Conservatives.
If the Constitution was supposed to directly or like privacy, it was simply implied somehow, that the government doesn't have the right to force you to buy things then why did the first President of the United Staes put out a mandate for Health Insurance? Granted it was closer to car insurance today since it was limited to a single profession, being a seaman (heh heh heh), but it was a government issued mandate nontheless. Not a state mandate, a Federal one.
Some people have asked if the government has the power to make you buy health insurance, what's next, brocoli? Funny thing about that two years after forcing captains to buy insurance President Washington made a mandate that every able bodied man own a fire arm. So if we take George Washington and the other Founding Fathers as a bell weather it's clear. If there is enough proof you need to buy brocoli the Founders didn't have any problem forcing you to do it.
That whole argument of these aren't the principles this country was founded on just flew out the window. Even the Framers were smart enough to know the simple truth. Sometimes the government needs to step in and tell people what to do because left to their own devices they'll make poor decisions. I highly doubt (though I'm no historian) that George Washington and John Adams (who signed an individual mandate on seamen [heh heh]) to do their friends in the insurance companies a favors. They did it because there was a need.
i'm curious what kind of reply we'll see from the righties. I'm guessing it will be crickets :)