Yes, that phrase comes from the 1931 horror flick, Frankenstein, but it seems to fit health care mandates in New Jersey just as well now after Governor Phil Murphy this week signed a couple of health care bills into law. The first, S1877, creates a state-level individual mandate replicating the major provisions of the individual mandate dictated by Obamacare, and subsequently repealed by Congress, although the repeal isn’t effective until next year. As soon as Congress completed the repeal, New Jersey lawmakers went to work trying to recreate the individual mandate provisions of the Affordable Care Act at the state level, and they succeeded in short order. The passage of S1877 requires all New Jersey residents to purchase health coverage through a government program or pay a penalty to the state. The second piece of legislation signed by Murphy this week was the flip side of that “pay a penalty” coin. S1878 authorizes the state to create the New Jersey Health Insurance Premium Security Fund, into which the state will deposit the penalties paid by those who choose not to buy health insurance ($93 million was paid collectively in 2015 by 189,000 New Jersey residents). The fund is to be used to pay claims of people who are catastrophically ill so that rates do not rise dramatically!