Affordable Care Act, Penalty Or Tax?

It seems that so far, the supreme court argument is centered on whether the individual mandate, in the ACA is a tax or a penalty, or maybe a tax penalty.
Conservative groups and supporters of the tea party, are vehemently against the ACA. But interestingly enough, they do want women to be forced to have trans-vaginal ultrasounds before they undergo an abortion and explain to their bosses why they are using birth control, in order to avoid abortions and trans-vaginal ultrasounds.
The individual mandate seems to be a code word for taking away individual freedoms, which is really weird to me. It's okay to be a debt slave to the banks or to the insurance company. And it's just too bad if you have a catastrophic illness that bankrupts you, or you can't pay your student loan, because you can't get a job. And if you do get a job, it's part time because employers don't want to provide expensive healthcare benefits. Thank god for my individual freedom of being too poor to afford healthcare, yet not destitute enough to qualify for medicaid. The healthcare industry makes up almost a third of our economy, that's right, it's an industry. Other developed countries have a single payer system or national healthcare system that covers all of their citizens. But the socialist healthcare boogeyman terrifies conservatives.  Because it terrifies healthcare lobbyists. I think it's interesting that Clarence Thomas had nothing to say yesterday, he is one of the most conservative justices on the bench. He will probably lean toward the individual mandate of go ahead and die in the street. Conservatives say that "we can't afford Obamacare" and  "keep your hands off of our healthcare". But we CAN afford for the uninsured to go to emergency rooms for everything from abscesses from people having no access to dental care, to a common cold that morphed into pneumonia because they could not afford to see a doctor. One way or another, everyone is going to pay. That seems like a very big penalty for us all.