Another Delay
Not to help the ACA work better, mind you. Everyone agrees this delay hurts the effective functioning of the new marketplace. But is it constitutional to fail to execute the laws of the land for no other reason than to help your party win an election? From The Hill:
The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats.
As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.
Prolonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.
The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day.
The White House is intent on protecting its allies in the Senate, where Democrats face a battle to keep control of the chamber.
All over the country, in dark cubicles with artificial lighting, there are hoards of actuaries feaking out right now. Many are likely devoid of hair at this point — due largely to the mind-numbing effects of continually pulling their hair out over ObamaCare’s numerous regulations that are delayed, ignored or mismanaged.
This is what happens during election year, especially when your main program is a failure and it is harming thousands of people. You start seeing questionable actions by the president. But the Republicans are the only ones who can do something about it. They should be on top of this matter and demanding the law to be followed.
How can laws be fully applied if the mandates are being delayed? Why hurry to approve and launch a program, that wasn’t thought throughout, if the administration will delayed all of its important mandates? It would have been better to wait until every piece was corrected before launched.
It must be nice to be in a position where you can literally change the law to help your party stay in office.
That’s freedom.
The program has been signed. It is too late to postponed its implement. Such remedy seems to be weak.
It is clear why the administration wants to delay ACA’s implementation, they know they have made a big mistake and they know that if the effects are seen before November their party will suffer dire consequences.
Exactly. Now they think they can make changes before anyone notices.
Across the world there isn’t biggest threat to democracy than the government’s oppression of the opposition party. Using the government machinery to remain in power is something that is common in weak democracies and that leaves the contending parties in a lower playing field. The party in power will do everything in they can to retain control; sometimes they even cross the legal line to do so.
Unless the Republicans can get some footing, it could become a single party system before long.
I believe America is sick and tired of Democrat lies with their smoke and mirrors. Republicans will prevail in the upcoming elections.
“But is it constitutional to fail to execute the laws of the land for no other reason than to help your party win an election”
Trying to save their tails once again.
The biasness of the American media harms the nation’s democracy. Each party has networks that support them. There is no neutral network that gives accurate information. Networks only denounce the inaccuracies of the party they don’t support, thus the electorate receive partialized information. If there were an objective media outlet, the country would be better off.
First, the ACA was rammed through Congress without any Republican support. Now the president thinks he can unilaterally amend the law at will to suit the political goals of his party. After promising everyone that they could keep their health plan if they liked it and they could keep seeing their doctor, his word isn’t worth much these days.
I think there is a good chance that the upcoming November election could resemble what happened in New Jersey in 1990. That year, our popular and well respected senator, Bill Bradley, was almost turned out of office by Republican, Jeff Bell, because people were furious at newly elected governor, Jim Florio, for ramming a large tax increase through the state legislature after saying that a tax increase wasn’t needed during the election campaign. Since he was safely in office, we couldn’t fire him but we could try to fire his fellow democrat running for reelection to the Senate. Bradley won in a close election but the people made their point.
I think there are a lot of democrats who would normally win who may not be so lucky this time around. Unless the economy comes roaring back over the next seven months or Republicans run a lot of unelectable Tea Party extremists, it could be a tough year for democrats, especially those running in sates that Mitt Romney won in 2012.
Two more years? Why not indefinitely? Obama never qualified “If you like your plan you can keep your plan” with a time limit.
Of course the lack of new entrants will eventually doom any grandfathered plan anyway.
Bart raises a good point.
Let’s say that a grandfathered or semi-grandfathered plan can keep going from 2014 to 2015.
But no one new can join the plan.
So the insurer will have to impose 15%-25% rate increases, or just abandon the plan for business reasons.
Meanwhile the exchanges will become more of a high risk pool.
This leaves darn near every individual paying high premiums.
And don’t forget Section 1201 of the ACA, which imposes that drive up small group premiums for about 70% of all small groups.
The Obama team may be too far into the tunnel to recover, sort of like Gen.William Westmoreland after all the escalations in Vietnam.