One of the more contested provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was the individual mandate.

The mandate requires every American to get health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a “crucial” and “controversial” feature of the act by a vote of 5-4 as a tax and not a command, according to Lyle Denniston from SCOTUSblog.

“The individual mandate is an important aspect of the Affordable Care Act,” said James Ciesla, professor of nursing and health studies, in an email.

Ciesla said the mandate was important for two reasons. Health insurance works best when a large pool of people are covered so the cost of reimbursing health services is spread out across a group, Ciesla said. If no mandate is in place, only people predisposed to needing expensive care would buy health insurance, Ciesla said.

The health insurance mandate can also reduce the number of people receiving health services they cannot or do not pay, he said. If a person has an emergency medical problem, they will be taken to a hospital and hospitals are required to take emergency patients even if they do not have health insurance.

“I realize the mandate is controversial,” Ciesla said. “It is my opinion that the mandate will, over time, shift the cost of providing health services to the people who use the services.”

Ciesla said the mandate will get people covered and eliminate denials of coverage. The mandate will very likely lead to lower premiums to people purchasing insurance on the individual market, he said.

The decision to uphold PPACA by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in the Supreme Court case was a “brilliant masterstroke,” said Artemus Ward, associate professor of political science, in an email.

Both Democrats and conservatives could find something in the decision that pleases them, he said. Democrats can be pleased the individual mandate was upheld and the Republicans have “political ammunition” to label President Barack Obama and Democrats in the upcoming presidential election as “tax and spend liberals” because Roberts said the mandate was a tax, Ward said.

Senior political science major Ben Robillard said he thinks the Supreme Court ruling on the health care law was a little unconstitutional.

“If you don’t want healthcare, it’s your own prerogative,” Robillard said.

He said he does agree many people signing up for health insurance coverage would allow it to be less expensive, but it is still in his opinion unconstitutional to require Americans to purchase it.

Robillard said he is on his father’s health insurance plan and finds the coverage really good. He was in intensive care for a week and half as a child and didn’t have an expensive medical bill in the end.

“It’s crises like that which makes healthcare, in my mind, a necessity,” Robillard said. “I’m kind of a Libertarian, so I’m not going to try to force anything upon anybody.”