Report: Obama To Extend Individual Mandate Deadline
Administration Denies

It begins with a reported 6 week delay in the deadline to buy Obamasurance (why not?).

But it was not immediately clear Wednesday whether the adjustment to a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act would need to be approved by Congress or could be done by the Department of Health and Human Services administratively.

As the law stands now, individuals are expected to begin the application process via HealthCare.gov by Feb. 15 to avoid a financial penalty. But under the prospective change, individuals will be expected to have started enrollment by March to avoid incurring the penalty.

Last week only extremists who probably should be charged with sedition believed in delaying anything about the ACA, now it's going to be official Obama administration policy.

The reaction from the GOP should be interesting. Will they support this (rhetorically, no way Obama goes to Congress for this) or will they insist that Obama live by his words of the last few months.

Here's the administration's veto statement on the employer and individual mandate bills the House passed (pdf).

. House passage of H.R. 2667 and H.R. 2668 will undermine this security for tens of millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions. H.R. 2667 is unnecessary, and H.R. 2668 would raise health insurance premiums and increase the number of uninsured Americans. Enacting this legislation would undermine key elements of the health law, facilitating further efforts to repeal a law that is already helping millions of Americans stay on their parents' plans until age 26, millions more who are getting free preventive care that catches illness early on, and thousands of children with pre-existing conditions who are now covered.

Now, a little more than a week after the end of the shutdown over delaying these very provisions, Obama is going to do it himself.

The reaction of the GOP will be interesting. Will they use this as a chance to show the American people that the federal government simply can not do everything for them or will they simply say give them power so they can deliver goodies in a more effective way?

Yeah.

Update:

NBC is wrong again. Individual mandate timing hasnt changed. Deadline for having insurance is March 31. Was true this am. Is true tonight.

— Josh Earnest (@jearnest44) October 23, 2013

What seems to have happened is that while the open enrollment period runs through the end of March, you had to buy insurance by the middle of February to avoid the tax/penalty. So you could have purchased insurance during the designated time period and still not have complied with the law.

Believe it or not, no one realized how stupid this was until a week or so ago. So what the administration is saying is as long as you buy a policy before the end of the first open enrollment period (Oct 1, 2012-March 31, 2014) you won't be penalized.

It's not so much a delay as confirmation that this bill was poorly drafted and no one really understands what's in it.

posted by DrewM. at 07:40 PM

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