jacksmith wrote down below concerning ACA
There is no mandate to buy private for-profit health insurance. There is only a nominal tax on income eligible individuals who don’t have health insurance. This is a HUGE! difference. And I suspect that tax may be subject to constitutional challenge as it ripens.
This is a critically important distinction. Because under the commerce clause individuals would have been compelled to support the most costly, dangerous, unethical, morally repugnant, and defective type of health insurance you can have. For-profit health insurance, and the for-profit proxies called private non-profits and co-ops.
Equally impressive in the courts ruling was the majorities willingness to throw out the whole law if the court could not find a way to sever the individual mandate under the commerce clause from the rest of the act. Bravo! Supreme Court.
The penalty for failure to buy private insurance is $94, insignificant. However, one must understand the position of AHIP (American Health Insurance Providers) as they guided this bill from birth to passage. An onerous fine would have raised hackles and may have rallied support against it. The important objective at that time was the principle put in motion: AHIP has the power to force the government to impose fines on us if we do not buy insurance from them. These people are rent seekers, nothing more. The fine is currently a feather. In the end, it will be an anvil. They mean business.
Will the get bigger? It depends on us. If we do as we are told and buy their crappy products, the fine will stay small. But if we don’t, if we are recalcitrants, they will indeed stick it to us. The fine will go up, eventually approaching the cost of a health insurance policy. That’s why it is there.
That is the only reason to have a fine. The fact that it starts out small is akin to the old story about cooking a frog … start it out in lukewarm water. By the time he realizes it is hot enough to cook him, it is too late.
Piece of Mindful 
We own 61% of AIG shares. We effectively own an insurance giant. Why not sell health care policies in competition with other companies reaping profits from roughly 30 million new captives? Instead, we’re liquidating shares at a discount. This could potentially turn the tables on the AHIP cartel. We could start small in selected markets to test the model. If successful, gradually turn up the heat after a string of quarterly earnings and profit “beats.” In the current environment of anemic bond yields and range-bound equity gambling, why not innovate? Curried AHIP frog could be on the menu. Yum.
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The fine already is scheduled to grow beyond the $94 ($95 according to Kaiser). In 2014 it can be up to 1% of your family income. In 2015, the individual fine goes to $325 and 2% of income. IN 2016, it goes to $695 or 2.5%, whichever is greater.
http://healthreform.kff.org/~/media/Files/KHS/Flowcharts/requirement_flowchart_2.pdf
As this was unfolding 4 years ago, I had a simple word for it: fascism.
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That’s brutal – forced tribute to private corporations, and brought about by Democrats, meaning that half the population will meekly lay down for it, and the other half will be mesmerized.
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