Mixed feelings on Obama’s postponement of the mandates
By Tom Quiner
Conservatives railed against the Obamacare mandates.
The thinking was simple: the federal government has no business coercing us into buying a product, health insurance, that we may not want.
Nonetheless, Congress passed the bill.
Even more, the Supreme Court affirmed the Constitutionality of this provision of Obamacare. In other words, we’re stuck with the mandate until that time the bill is repealed. Individuals have to purchase health insurance or be fined. Employers with 50 or more full-time employees have to provide them with health insurance, or be fined.
The president could see the mandate was wreaking carnage on businesses, the economy, and Democrat’s prospects in the 2014, so he waved his executive wand and deferred its implementation. So, instead of an October 1st implementation this year, it won’t kick in until after the 2014 midterm elections in November of that year.
Here is where the mixed feelings kick in.
I don’t like the mandate, but does the president have the power to tinker with a piece of legislation passed by Congress like this? I think not.
And his motivations were all political. His party passed a boondoggle piece of legislation, Obamacare, that can’t even be properly implemented on the timetable imposed by the Congress. The entire success of Obamacare is predicated on getting a whole bunch of younger people to purchase health insurance on insurance exchanges that federal and state governments are attempting to set up.
Their participation is critical to offset more favorable rates for those with pre-existing and chronic conditions. Without significant participation of the young, Obamacare will implode upon itself.
Younger insureds will pay a premium price, since Obamacare insists that you purchase expensive, gold-plated coverage.
If you can’t afford it, you may qualify for subsidized rates by completing 21 pages of paper work.
So, the president moved the date for the implementation of the mandate, by fiat ,to give Obamacare more time to sign up younger insureds. Even more, they’ll sign you up at subsidized rates without properly verifying your eligibility.
In tacit admission of their collective incompetence, the administration is using the honor system in determining who will receive deep discounts on the basis of need.
Recall how candidate Obama promised “to root out waste and fraud” which is rampant in Medicare and Medicaid.
They’ve taken the Reagan mantra of “trust, but verify,” and turned it on its head with their new “don’t verify AND trust” approach to governance.
The Obama administration has demonstrated their unseriousness in being faithful to the law and the voters in this single area alone. It is this fickleness which may kill any meaningful immigration reform. As Rep. Paul Labrador pointed out on Meet the Press on Sunday:
“The legalization happens first, and then the security happens second. And I think the American people are not going to stand for that. In fact, if you look at this Obamacare debacle that they have right now, this administration is actually deciding when and where to– to actually enforce the law. And that’s what some of us in the House are concerned about.
If you give to this Administration the authority to decide when they’re going to enforce the law, how they’re going to enforce the law, and you– you tell them that it’s okay if they decide if there’s going to be 20,000 troops or if there’s going to be– I mean 20,000 border patrol agents or it’s– or they get to determine when the border is secure, I can tell you that Janet Napolitano has already said that the border is secure. So what’s going to happen is that we’re going to give legalization to 11 million people and Janet Napolitano is going to come to Congress and tell us that the border is already secure and nothing else needs to happen.”
The president’s handling of Obamacare tells us all we need to know about him: he has all the credibility of the old regimes that ruled the Soviet Union.
As the Gipper would put it, “trust, but verify.” It worked with our dealings with Brezhnev; Republicans should use the same approach with Obama.
Good job pulling it all together.
Thank-you!