Health Care, the Supreme Court, and Baloney

Some of the arguments that were made at the Supreme Court last week were amazing, especially to those who are aware how the Commerce Clause of the Constitution has been interpreted in the past, to say nothing of the broad taxing power granted to the federal government by the 16th Amendment.  For example, Charles Fried, who was President Reagan's solicitor general, argues that the ACA individual mandate is constitutional: “So health care is interstate commerce.  Is this a regulation of it?  Yes.  End of story.”
 
There is a lot more commentary available on the web on the legal arguments to anyone interested.  In this post, I just wanted to share an amusing exchange between Paul Clement and Justice Elena Kagan:

MR. CLEMENT: Well, with respect, Mr. Chief
Justice, I suppose the first thing you have to say is
what market are we talking about? Because the
government -- this statute undeniably operates in the
health insurance market. And the government can't say
that everybody is in that market. The whole problem is
that everybody is not in that market, and they want to
make everybody get into that market.

 JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, doesn't that seem a
little bit, Mr. Clement, cutting the baloney thin?
mean, health insurance exists only for the purpose of
financing health care. The two are inextricably
interlinked. We don't get insurance so that we can
stare at our insurance certificate. We get it so that
we can go and access health care.