Allah:
The perfect complement to this morning’s post on immigration. The employer mandate was already delayed last year, of course, in order to spare Democrats some extra pain during O-Care’s extremely painful rollout. That wasn’t related to an imminent election, though; this new delay is. Obama unilaterally amnestized DREAMers two years ago for no better reason than that it helped his side in the 2012 election. Now he’s going to amnestize small businesses from his signature boondoggle for the same reason, to cover his team’s asses this fall.
According to the statute passed by Congress and signed by the president, businesses with 50 or more full-time employees are required by law to provide them with health insurance as of January 1, 2014. But the law doesn’t matter:
Employers with fewer than 100 workers won’t have to provide health insurance until 2016 under Obamacare, as the administration said it would again delay a key requirement of the health law.
Larger firms have to cover at least 70 percent of the workforce starting next year, the Internal Revenue Service said in a rule issued today.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act envisioned as a cornerstone of its expansion of U.S. insurance coverage that employers with 50 or more workers would be required to provide health benefits to their employees. Under pressure from business groups, the Obama administration has weakened that requirement since July, first by delaying enforcement of the mandate until 2015. Many firms will have even more time under the regulation issued today…
The rule provides employers far more flexibility than allowed by the language of the health law, which levies fines of as much as $3,000 per worker against firms that don’t comply with the requirement.
Three points. One: It’ll be a stump-speech staple for every Republican running in 2016 that he intends to delay ObamaCare indefinitely, root and branch, if elected. Obama’s now set the precedent that he can suspend parts of the law simply because he finds them politically inconvenient. That precedent will be built upon. Two: The GOP might sue to force him to enforce the mandate, although the politics of that are tricky. No one likes the mandate, especially Republicans’ benefactors in the business lobby. Successfully suing O over this, even if it’s for the noble constitutional purpose of compelling the president to faithfully execute the law, would mean making ObamaCare even more onerous than it is. Good for rolling back executive overreach, not so good for the economy.
Three: This should be it for immigration reform.
Obama really is making it up as he goes along.
Matt Drudge has the crux of the problem emphasized by juxtaposing various headlines:
Beef, caviar and Mary J. Blige…
REPORT: Doctors Forced to Ration Critical Drugs…
FIT: Gym members forced to pay new tax…
‘Avalanche’ of Regs Still to Come Under ObamaCare….
Hear ye! Hear ye! The Emperor has spoken, so that his most loyal subjects (the Democratic party) might have merchant prince cronies on their side. Harken that yon reprieve will leave thou Wall Street lords with monies that shall’est not be spent on thy serfs, but may better be tithed to thy own’ed and grafted Democrat House servants.
Let all now turn to bow and scrape towards yon White Palace which be hailed on high and whom has thusly insured that more of ye peasants may leave thy burdens and join yon health exchange. Step not on those children and infirm that are surely dead of third hand smoke and soft drinks, and not the mythical Death Panels of which profane demons whisper in thy ears. Hear ye! Hear Ye! That is all!
Good news. We can save a boat load of money. Send all of congress and their staff home. Fire them all. We don’t need them anymore. We now have Obie the lawmaker in charge. With his mighty pen and phone he can do it alone.
Again, the blatant lies of dems on the economic effects of obamacare assured us that passage of the law -as it was signed by Obama in its entirety – was going to: cut the deficit; decrease the cost of healthcare; improve employment by making business more profitable via the alleged decrease in healthcare costs and by producing 4 million new jobs; all while allowing people to keep their doctors and plans if they liked them.
So if the dems really believed these glorious economic effects would result from the full implementation of obamacare, then it makes no sense for Obama to (again) illegally delay his signature policy turd….unless of course the dems know full well the economic and medical impacts will be very negative, and thus weaken their hold on political power.
Evil. Dishonest. Thy name is democrat.