If they didn't have access to healthcare before, it's because the market would not support it (and it's pretty clear why). You can argue that this is a market failure that the government should correct, but if the GOP is concerned about how Obamacare will affect insurance companies (and in turn insurance purchasers), their concerns and "outrage" are quite logical here. If you have too many high-risk insureds purchasing insurance without enough low-risk insureds also purchasing insurance, insurance companies will lose, rather than make money, resulting in, eventually, substantially less people who are insured.
But the individual mandate will only work if the tax for not getting insurance is more than the cost of getting insurance, which it's not. The individual mandate has no teeth, rendering it largely ineffective.
This reminds me of someone online who said something to the effect of, "Well I'm not getting insurance because I can just pay the fine which is half as much as the insurance is so THERE! HARUMPH!" Because paying
x to get absolutely nothing and then pay for your healthcare out of pocket makes so much more sense than just paying 2
x and the $15 co-pay to see the doctor when you need to.
