An individual mandate is a requirement by a government that certain individual citizens purchase or otherwise obtain a good or service.
In the United States, the United States Congress has enacted two individual mandates, the first was never federally enforced, while the second is not scheduled to take effect until 2014. The Militia Acts of 1792, based on the Constitution's militia clause (in addition to its affirmative authorization to raise an army and a navy), would have required every "free able-bodied white male citizen" between the ages of 18 and 45, with a few occupational exceptions, to "provide himself" a weapon and ammunition;[1] however, its constitutionality was never litigated.[2] The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed in 2010 imposes a health insurance mandate to take effect in 2014, based on the Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce, but the legislation is controversial: in 2010, a majority of states joined litigation in federal court arguing that the power to "regulate" commerce does not include an affirmative power to compel commerce by penalizing inaction; as of 2011, the several court rulings on the matter have disagreed about whether the mandate is constitutional.[3][4][5] In 1994, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report describing an individual mandate as "an unprecedented form of federal action... The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States."[6]