ObamaCare is a moral imperative. God wants you to have ObamaCare. You're racist if you're not in favor of enacting ObamaCare. These are all things we've heard from the left over the course of the last three years. Conservatives who would dare stand in the way of the Affordable Care Act were monsters to be slain with extreme prejudice.
Unfortunately, it looks like the monster is now the President himself.
Despite Obama's illegal, unilateral, diktats delaying key portions of the law, it's still massively unpopular. Democrats have no one but themselves to blame for its failure. ObamaCare has become a disastrous political millstone that may very well drown the Dems' 2014 midterm hopes. It also has left-wing candidates terrified about their 2016 prospects.
"If you like your plan you can keep your plan" has become the most blatant and obvious of the President's many ObamaCare lies, so it's sure to be at the center of, oh, about a thousand campaign ads over the course of the next three years. Since Dems admit they have no idea how they can fix the mess they've created, Obama's considering a foolhardy plan to save their bacon via another delay. It's still unilateral, and still illegal, but it's the only play they've got left - short of an impossible-to-consider appeal.
The Obama administration is considering an extension of the president's decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they are not compliant with the health care overhaul, industry and government officials said Thursday.
Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for as long as an additional three years, stressing that no decision has been made. Policymakers are waiting to see what rate hikes health insurers plan for the insurance exchanges that are key to the overhaul's coverage expansions.
"The administration is entertaining a range of options to ensure that this individual market has stability to it, and that would be one thing that they could do," he said.
A three year delay, eh? That's odd. When Ted Cruz wanted to impose a one-year delay - through proper legal channels - Dems like Harry Reid called him an arsonist, a political terrorist, and a racist. Now the President himself wants a three-year delay, and he's going to do it illegally via the stroke of his pen?
Why, that would mean the cancellations wouldn't go into effect until just after the 2016 presidential elections! Isn't that convenient?
Health and Human Services spokesman Joanne Peters confirmed that the issue is under discussion, saying: "We are continuing to examine all sorts of ways to provide consumers with more choices and to smooth the transition as we implement the law. No decisions have been made."
This would do three things for the Democrats.
1. Allow them to falsely claim that no one is being cancelled during the 2014 and 2016 election cycles.
2. Give them time to sell the idea of single payer (Hillarycare?) as a "fix" for Obama's abject failure.
3. Set up a bogus election year canard where they claim that "We’ve given you healthcare. Republicans want to repeal our magnificent law and turn you out onto the mean streets of private insurance."
Guess what? If the GOP plays it's cards right (I know...) That won't be enough. It may play to a left-wing base that's becoming increasingly addicted to federal handouts but, for everyone else, the Dems' problem will remain. The overwhelming majority of the American peopleloathethis law and briefly postponing their misery isn't going to change that.
The fact is that President Frankenstein is so afraid of the monster he's created that he's resorting to illegal measures in an effort to avoid enacting it. That speaks volumes about the real impact and unpopularity of his favorite law. If conservatives keep up the pressure, it will take more than another "delay" to extricate his candidates from the discontent he's created.
