I have two questions prompted by the announcement this week that the Obama administration would not enforce yet another provision of Obamacare.

The first question is: Are employers’ legal counsel advising that those provisions might be enforced, retroactively, at some later date? After all, the provisions remain on the books. If this administration or a later one decides that, say, the employer mandate should be enforced as written, does the employer have to pay up? Of course there would be a serious argument that the president’s announcement (or the blog post issued before a holiday weekend by an assistant secretary of the treasury) that the law would not be enforced should stop the government from enforcing it later. But large sums of money are at stake. Should employers prudently set aside money in reserves to protect them against such an eventuality? Just asking.