Obamacare written on the wind

March 31 is the deadline for individuals to sign up for Obamacare, and those who don’t will be stuck with an IRS penalty.

Or will they?

The Department of Health and Human Services held a conference call Tuesday, with one official telling media, “We have no plans to extend the open enrollment period.”

She went on to say that the administration does “not have the statutory authority” to extend the deadline — quite a change-up for an administration that has unilaterally granted deadline extensions for businesses and waivers for unions and other favored  constituencies to avoid the law’s requirements.

There was surely no mention of all the hardship exemptions from the individual mandate that are available. The Wall Street Journal stirred up some buzz this week focusing on a new provision for the law that allows individuals who have had their own insurance canceled to avoid the mandate to buy insurance because it constitutes a hardship.

All they have to do is fill out a form attesting that their policies were canceled and that they believe the options available through Obamacare are too expensive.

As with other exceptions related to the law, this one is intended to dull the very real political pain that comes with its implementation.

While the most recent focus has been on people who have lost their insurance, there are 13 other ways out through hardship exemptions. And that’s not all. The IRS, which is charged with levying penalties on those who don’t sign up, has no authority to collect the money through liens or wage garnishment. The only option is to deduct penalties from any refunds that are owed to a taxpayer.

What about the uninsured masses that the law was mainly intended to help? In a turn of jaw-dropping irony, the Washington Post recently reported on a survey finding that just one in 10 uninsured people who qualify have signed up for Obamacare.

And the top reason cited by respondents for failing to enroll? The plans were considered unaffordable.

Uninsured consumers, particularly the “young invincibles” who were so desperately needed to subsidize health care for others, are simply choosing not to buy insurance — any IRS penalty be damned.

The individual mandate, which has been correctly portrayed as an essential ingredient for the law’s success, now appears to be a very leaky sieve. The president’s signature health-care “reform” law is in many ways just politics as usual, and while it may be helping some people, it is surely hurting many others.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.