They need a large majority of men to sign up for health care coverage to make it cost effective. Women are significantly larger consumers of health care than men but one of the laws is that premiums must be equal for each gender ... so if men don't sign up it will increase costs dramatically.

It's much cheaper for me to pay the penalty than to have insurance --- I know better with the high risk activities I participate in that I need insurance but a lot of self employed folks can't afford it.