"What part of
'It's. The. Law.' don't you understand?"
asks Byron York, seemingly of the White House that posted that very tweet weeks ago.
Just to add emphasis, in early June President Obama dismissed
concerns that the national health care startup was not going well. "This
is the way the law was designed to work," he told an audience in
California. "Since everyone's saying how it's not going to happen, I
think it's important for us to recognize and acknowledge that this is
working the way it's supposed to."
Now, however, it appears the administration's bravado was all for show.
At the same time Obama was expressing great confidence, White House
officials were secretly meeting with representatives of big business to
discuss ways to postpone enforcement of parts of the new law. And on
Tuesday the White House announced that the employer mandate -- sometimes
described as a "crucial" element of Obamacare -- will be delayed to
2015 from its scheduled start on Jan. 1, 2014.
Don't expect a similar delay (relief) for individual taxpayers or exchanges, however.
Obamacare is designed to increase the number of Americans who depend
on the government to pay for health insurance. It will expand the
Medicaid rolls, and it will give subsidies to millions of individuals
and families to purchase insurance on the exchanges. In all, the
government will be transferring hundreds of billions of dollars to
Americans for health coverage.
The White House knows that once those payments begin, repealing
Obamacare will no longer be an abstract question of removing legislation
not yet in effect. Instead, it will be a very real matter of taking
money away from people. It's very, very hard to do that.
So yes, retreating on the employer mandate was a big deal. But the White
House would rather do that than endanger the flow of money that is the
heart of Obamacare. The White House will not waver on that, no matter
what Republicans say or do.
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