As we have seen, the television networks have avoided the controversy of President Obama unilaterally delaying another Obamacare provision in the law yet again. Even more absurd is when a newspaper writer whose main task is to cover healthcare also neglects to mention that same elephant in the room. Such was the case with Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post who breezily reported on the details of the latest delay in the employer mandate but does not address the obvious presidential overreach of ignoring the provisions of the statute.
It was left to the readers of the Kliff article to go where Sarah dare not tread. It was another case in which the comments section was way more informative than the article itself. Here is Kliff defining "rewriting" as "relaxing":
In today's final rule, the Obama administration is essentially relaxing the employer mandate for 2015--in a big way for medium-sized businesses, and a smaller way for the largest employers.
Kliff gives us the details of the changes and concludes with an attempt to defuse the controversy by claiming, eh, no big deal:
Delays to the employer mandate can matter politically. But as for what they mean for who Obamacare covers, this delay will likely amount to a relatively small, if non-existent, change.
Perhaps this blatant abuse of presidential power is unimportant for Kliff but for her readers it is overwhelmingly important as you can see in their comments:
Obama is slowly dismantling his own law. That is more damning than anything a Republican could say about it.
You are also ignoring the larger issue. If this law is such a great idea, why all the delays and waivers in its implementation? The most obvious explanation is that the employer mandate is being delayed another year to forestall the great disruption it will visit on millions of voters until after the election. If this isn't a purely political move.... if there is, in fact, a subtle and nuanced policy justification for this that escapes the lesser folk in flyover country, so far at least you ain't sayin', and neither is Obama. That would be a very useful column to write.
Didnt almost every Democrat Senator and Congressman get on TV and proclaim that ObamaCare was the law of the land, and that it cant be changed?
Relax the law? This is a broach of the law.
The real problem is dealing with a president usurping the role of congress.
Law of the Land... meet Whim of the President.
You fail to address whether a president can break the law by refusing to execute a duly passed and signed piece of legislation.
You can look south to Venezuela & Argentina and see Supreme Leaders standing on balconies, manipulating their dying economies with executive orders.
On February 14, Sarah Kliff departs from the Washington Post Wonkblog to join JournoList Ezra Klein's Vox Media. Therefore we would like to send Ms Kliff a Valentine card with a reminder that no matter where she goes in the web of Middle Earth, The Newsbusters Eye of Sauron will remain firmly focused upon her.
