Congress Isn’t The Only Branch Of Government That Has Mastered The Art Of Kicking The Can Down The Road

As of February 10, 2014, there have been 35 changes to ObamaCare according to the Galen Institute. Those changes include 18 by executive action, 15 by Congress, signed by President Obama, and 2 changes made by the Supreme Court.

The most recent change to ObamaCare is a delay of the employer mandate requiring companies to provide insurance for full-time employees. The Galen Institute reports that the latest change postpones enforcement of the requirement for medium-size employers until 2016 and relaxes some requirements for larger employers. Businesses with 100 or more employees must offer coverage to 70% of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95% in 2016 and beyond.

On Tuesday, The Heritage Foundation posted an article explaining why these changes are important.

The Heritage Foundation explains the problem in one sentence:

Congress included a mandate when it passed the law. Obama signed that law. So (unless lawmakers repeal it, and of course they should) the mandate should take effect, even if that causes the entire law to collapse like a burning firework factory.

Yesterday Michael Barone posted an article at the Washington Examiner which asked two questions about the changes made to ObamaCare.

The two questions are:

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?

My second question is: What would stop a future administration from following Obama’s precedent and declaring that it would not enforce other provisions in tax laws?

Those members of Congress who are not speaking out against the executive overreach that is currently happening might want to consider how they would react if it were being done by an administration they did not agree with.

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