I have long opposed ObamaCare for a variety of reasons. Of course, that doesn’t mean that every aspect of it will be pernicious. But instead of acknowledging any possible salutary outcomes, my fellow conservatives have generally assumed the worst — that people would take advantage of this to sit on the couch and play video games. The truth is that a lot of hardworking Americans might actually benefit from this one component of a bad law.

Conservatives believe that work is a good thing, and, indeed, we cannot disconnect the spiritual and psychological benefits of a good day’s work from our policies. Sitting around the house won’t give you fulfillment or happiness that you get from accomplishing a goal. But guess what? Neither will working a horrible job…

This may be an opportunity for some people to better themselves, but, for others, ObamaCare will be a rational reason to turn down opportunities for growth and advancement. I recently spoke with AEI Resident Scholar Michael R. Strain. And while he generally agreed with Carney about people who were working solely for health insurance, he also had this warning:

“The real problem is not people who are working only for health insurance no longer have to work because now they have health insurance. The problem is that as the subsidies for ObamaCare phase out, you’re imposing implicit marginal tax rates that are very high. So if you make an extra $1,000 — and you lose your subsidy — that’s a big cost. And that’s a big disincentive not to make that extra $1,000. And what that’s going to do is to put extra pressure on people not to advance in their careers, not to work full time, and to kind of stay where they are. And that, I think, is a very serious flaw in ObamaCare.”