Precedent: If One President Can Unilaterally Rewrite the Law of ObamaCare and Choose to Not Enforce It, Why Can Another President Not Do the Same, But Refuse to Enforce Any of It?

Is there a special provision in the Constitution that specially empowers liberal presidents with special powers available only to themselves?

No, there's not. If President Obama can do this, then President Walker can do this.

Avik Roy writes about the decision.

Does Obama have the legal authority to delay the mandate?

The Affordable Care Act is quite clear as to the effective date of the employer mandate. “The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013,” concludes Section 1513.

The executive branch is charged with enforcing the law, and it can of course choose not to enforce the law if it wants. But people can sue the federal government, and a judge could theoretically force the administration to enforce the mandate.

So the question is: Would anyone sue the Obama administration over this? Employers, of course, will be thrilled to be spared the mandate for one more year. Democratic politicians, similarly, will be glad to have this not hanging over their heads for the 2014 mid-term election.

The wild-card is left-wing activists. Most, you’d think, would defer to the administration on questions of implementation. I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that all it would take is for one judge to issue an injunction, for an activist to require the administration to enforce the mandate.

I don't support the hidden assumption there, that only leftwing activists could sue because only they would suffer tangible harm from this. Though I'm afraid Chief Justice Tax-Not-a-Tax might agree.

Roy also believes that the move will have two effects -- it will delay the unemployment-raising effect of ObamaCare (to the Democrats' political advantage, naturally) and will drive more people to join the state health care exchanges, because they'll be forced to buy insurance (note the individual mandate is still in effect) while businesses aren't required to provide it for another year. Whether this outcome is desired or not, it will have the effect of pushing more people off employer insurance and into a government system, which many suspect, with good reason, is the Trojan Horse plan behind this all from the beginning of it.

posted by Ace at 07:14 PM

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