[Tublecane]

“’It’s not based on income.’

‘What is “it’s”? The penalty or the individual mandate”

“It” is what it was in your post: the penalty/tax. The mandate, by the way, is now a phantom. It doesn’t actually exist, or to say the same thing has no legal force. Only the tax exists; the mandate is an explicit implication that in the eyes of SCOTUS does not rise to coercion because the so-called tax backing it up is justified.

[philman_36]

The mandate, by the way, is now a phantom.
Snip...Only the tax exists; the mandate is an explicit implication that in the eyes of SCOTUS does not rise to coercion because the so-called tax backing it up is justified.
Really?! In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. How can a penalty exist if there is no mandate?
There's nothing to penalize if the mandate doesn't exist and it sure looks to me like the mandate exists as a tax.