The Supreme Court decision made it official -- the health care mandate is a tax. That is a characterization one Senator says would have doomed its passage had it been known at the time.

"There would not have been ten votes for the legislation," South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said. "Nobody would have wanted to have gone home and say, 'I just increased your taxes by billions of dollars over the next 10 years to fix health care.'"

The administration preferred to use the word revenues, but it was clear taxpayers would have to cover the cost of the new law.

"We are insuring 30 million people who didn't have insurance before," Jimi Kessler of the centrist democratic think tank Third Way said. "That's going to cost some money."

But he notes with offsetting revenues from tax increases, "It's basically going to break even in terms of deficit." 

In the first 10 years, including four years before the law takes full effect, the administration plans to raise taxes more than 400 billion dollars -- on everything from tanning salons to medical devices and high-end insurance plans.