Mandate

The individual mandate in Obamacare means that people who choose not to have health insurance will pay an extra charge when they file their income taxes. This was included to encourage people to sign up for Obamacare. This was introduced as a penalty for not having insurance but the Supreme Court said it would only be legal if it were a tax and not a penalty. A top surrogate for President Obama insisted Friday that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act was not a tax — despite the fact that the Supreme Cour tnarrowly preserved the law on those grounds. Part of last years new tax law included the repeal of the individual mandate and a judge in Texas ruled that the rest of Obamacare is invalid. This could not have been repealed if it were a penalty.