View: Taxpayers handed another broken Obamacare promise

Some of the "nursing" measures they might be tempted to take are existential threats to the bill, such as easing off the individual mandate.

See also: Feds explain individual mandate exemptions.

But this, like most of what it has already done, does not threaten Obamacare's viability as a system. What it does renege on is the promise that the bill would be deficit-neutral — even deficit-reducing! What it does is raise the cost of a program that was sold on the promise that it would reduce costs.

Though the Congressional Budget Office has stopped scoring it, after all these changes, I find it hard to believe that Obamacare is now deficit-neutral, much less deficit-reducing. Of course, temporary transitional relief is not that expensive; it's just a year of revenue. But it's not going to get easier to impose these costs going forward. If anything, it will get harder, because people will be used to things the way they are. Moreover, costs imposed in year one would be at least partially offset by the new benefits, in terms of premium subsidies.

Costs imposed in years two to infinity will not be viewed as the unfortunate costs of getting new benefits; they'll just be seen as new costs that those who pay will very much resent. I would be very surprised indeed if the administration suddenly rediscovered its backbone in 2016, with its party staring down an election in which Obamacare will very much be an issue. And even more surprised if a future administration decided to be the party pooper that cracked down on costs after the Obama administration got to be the one handing out the goodies.

There is one possible piece of counter-evidence to my thesis: The employer mandate, which the administration did finally impose on large employers after a year delay. And yet, I don't think this is much of a counterweight. The 2015 version of the employer mandate is so weak that it's effectively not that much different from no mandate, as almost all large firms already offer their employees health insurance. Symbolically, the mandate still exists; practically, it doesn't, until the government really does demand 95 percent coverage from all companies with more than 50 employees.

This ruling by itself is not a particularly big deal — it's just delaying the repayment of what people owe, not forgiving it. Presumably there's some permanent loss of the income that would normally have been expected, but the gears of the government will not therefore grind to a halt. But it is important as a symptom of a broader tendency in the administration, to be free with the spending and not so free collecting the revenue needed to pay for it.

As I say, this is not in any way an existential threat to the program. It's just a creeping leak in the taxpayer's wallet.

See also: Witnesses: PPACA income verification is a mess.