Obamacare supporters have wasted no time in responding to the Congressional Budget Office's new report (p. 117) that the law will, unsurprisingly, reduce the nation's labor supply by the equivalent of two million jobs. (Note: through the cumulative effect of many people voluntarily choosing to work fewer hours, rather than two million people quitting work altogether.)

The facile retort is that until now, the American people have been working too hard -- and now that they have "affordable" health care, they can happily afford to work less and spend more time with the kids or the paint brushes.

But working less is only good if we have become more productive. Technological developments cut the work week from six days to five a hundred years ago, and have allowed us all to enjoy more leisure and accomplish more when we do work. We pay for our extra leisure by being more efficient.

ObamaCare, however, has not discovered a new drug or technology, or lifted a costly regulation. It does not reduce but merely redistributes costs: some people can choose to work less not because their productivity has increased, but because those who are working will be compelled to pick up the slack. And working less only because someone else will pay for it is nothing to celebrate.