IT RAN AFOUL OF THE ONE DROP RULE:

By the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a lawsuit seeking to overturn the entirety of the ACA. For the second time, the core legal argument confronting the Court involves the ACA's "individual responsibility requirement," better known as the "individual mandate" that requires most Americans to obtain health insurance. For 33 years, and especially since President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law in 2010, the mandate has been a prize and a booby trap for Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives alike, rarely at the same time. Initially a policy favored by many Republicans and conservatives and reviled by most Democrats, both sides swapped roles during the ACA's creation between 2008 and 2010. Since then, the mandate has been the least favored part of the now popular health law, and the most disputed feature of one of U.S. history's most contested laws.

The mandate has always been a case of tough love. First introduced into public conversation in the United States in 1989 by the conservative Heritage Foundation, the concept was written and promoted then by its chief domestic policy expert, Stuart Butler. It became law in the U.S. for the first time in 2006 in Massachusetts. 

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