"The Social Security system may be accurately described as a form of social insurance, enacted pursuant to Congress' power to "spend money in aid of the general welfare,'" Helvering v. Davis, supra, at 301 U. S. 640" --Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603
They created a program and enacted a tax to fund it.
The penalty used to enforce the healthcare mandate is in the form of a tax penalty imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code.
The topic article points out that the judges are not listening to that argument, because that is not the power Congress says they are relying on in the bill.
I didn't see it. A quote would be helpful.
Insurance provides policy holders with proprietary and accrued property rights. The Social Security Insurance program was sold to the public as insurance, but the Supreme Court refused to so restrict it, asserting that, "To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands."
Obamacare may turn eventually into a bigger boondoggle than Social Security, but that doesn't make it unprecedented. Both systems impose individual mandates under an assertion of the general welfare clause. Both systems utilize the tax system in the administration and enforcement of the benefits programs.
The heated "individual mandate" language being tossed doubtless has some political advantages to its invocation, but I'm skeptical of the legal merits.