several pages in after someone brings up the individual mandate and everyone seems to be just pointing fingers and not getting into the details (my apologies if im wrong about this, its merely what im observing from skimming over each of the last 5 pages)
from my understanding, the individual mandate was put in place not as a form of "punishment" for people as if the government was "forcing" everyone to get health insurance (hence why a lot of rednecks and super-conservatives scream socialism when they hear obamacare), but rather that it was implemented to help offset the costs associated with the pre-existing conditions clause (which was put into place to help people who are sick and dying get healthcare; this is good if you believe a person's need for healthcare is more important than a health insurance company's need for snatching a quick buck). the existence of the pre-existing conditions clause makes insurance companies respond by raising their insurance prices since they'd be forced to insure lots of sick people who are a huge financial risk for the insurance companies; the idea was then to institute the individual mandate to force young people to get health insurance - not for the sake of socialism - but to offset the number of sick and high-risk people on healthcare by adding lots of young and healthy low-risk people to the insurance care pool. it's a fairly logical idea.
however, i can say that the individual mandate unfortunately wasn't enough to fix the rising healthcare costs obamacare has brought with it. my family's healthcare costs have quadrupled since obamacare was first implemented. maybe lots of people can get health insurance now, and that's good for them, but it definitely has made many other people's situations worse.
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