Whether you like Obamacare or not, the individual mandate is probably the most intelligent proposal that our government has come up with since the 1960s when Medicare was first adopted.  At that time, the US government mandated that anyone in the US has access to emergency room health care whether or not they can pay: that includes illegal aliens, people with health insurance and people without coverage.  Since 1965 when the Medicare Act became law, we have had a form of universal healthcare, however Medicare does not mandate everyone pay for that care!  So, we have a very expensive form of universal care, according to many studies the most expensive care in the world, but there is no universal pay in!

The actual taxpayers have paid for all the deadbeats who did not pay for insurance, illegal aliens who were afraid to receive care and the poor.   What we are doing with the idea of expanding and mandating that more Americans pay into the system is to bring our system closer to universal healthcare (which we have already) with more people paying into the system rather than receiving a free ride!