>>The former said (in essence), "join this and you'll get a small tax credit. But don't join in and try to freeload, and the free ride is over". While that doesn't exactly align with pure libertarian economics, there are elements of "sane and sensible" in the program.
>>The latter says, "You have to join this or you're penalized"....even if the person is young and healthy and has no pre-existings and statistically unlikely to need a doctor. Much more dictatorial.
>>I'm paraphrasing, but that is the essence of the two.

So you're not penalized if you lose a tax credit, but you are penalized if you are fined.?

Also I think you'll find that Mitt's plan specifically intended to motivate the young and fit to join. The idea is to invest surpluses from the salad years to cover predictable future costs as the vessel becomes older and creakier. The alternative can't work- consider Medicare's reliance on taxes from working people and what would happen if they were allowed to opt out. The US model that sees early surpluses scooped as dividends and predictable future costs dumped on the taxpayer, could not succeed in providing cover for all without a mandate, since too many people would opt out and then rely on the community principle to freeload. Dictatorial? Then it's dictatorial to "force" people to contribute to fire departments, schools and roads that they've never used. Others might consider such thoughts to be selfish and antisocial: It's Social Compact that makes communities work, not individual scrabblings in jealous pursuit of me, me, me.