Somebody yesterday in an article stated after analyzing the new proposal that both the mandate and the penalty are still in and in fact reiterated in the this stinker.
I suspect the mandate is there, but in a more “constitutionally friendly” way.
i.e. instead of forcing you to pay x dollars, they increase everyone’s taxes by x dollars and then give them an x dollar tax credit for buying insurance.
That makes me sick, but at least the government is not forcing me to buy a product.
BTW, this is exactly what the USPS did to large producers of bulk mail back at the turn of the century. They raised the rate, but if you used their address rules, you got a huge discount - to exactly what the rate was before they raised it. :-)