"Sure sounds like an 'individual mandate' to me."
There are some pretty vast differences between this disincentive and the individual mandate.  The biggest one I just touched on was the difference in oversight, ie. the FOR-PROFIT insurance companies are going to responsible for oversight and you'd have to take then to court for any dispute or differences rather than state or federal government.

"Almost as if the insurance companies wrote this little clause themselves."
Republicans aren't known for any innovative or progressive thinking.  They probably just wrote to experts, ie. lobbyists, on how to offload any government obligation or responsibility to private entities and came up with this humdinger of a travesty.