Administration Announces Another Obamacare Delay

As expected, the Obama administration announced yet another delay to Obamacare this afternoon. Via Politico:
The Obama administration will allow some health plans that fall short of Obamacare coverage requirements to continue past the November elections and through most of President Barack Obama's second term.
The decision, announced Wednesday by federal health officials, extends for two years an earlier decision by the White House to let people keep their existing health plans through 2014, even if those plans fell short of the Affordable Care Act requirements.
Without the change, Democrats worried that another wave of canceled health policies would hit in October, stirring up another round of controversy as the midterm elections approached.
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan…until 2016. If your state insurance commissioner agrees.
So, the timeline thus far goes something like this: President Obama signs a law into effect, promises that it won't do something he knows full well it will do, and insists to opponents that it can't be undone because it's the law of the land; then when it eventually does that thing that he promised it wouldn't do, and Democrats start to panic about the unpleasant political consequences, he responds by altering its implementation using dicey legal authority.
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What's a little law of the land when there are congressional seats at stake?
"So let it be written, so let it be done!"
Well, proggies think that the Constitution is a living, breathing document. I don't see why they wouldn't also think that a measly law is too.
The Obama administration will allow some health plans that fall short of Obamacare coverage requirements to continue past the November elections and through most of President Barack Obama's second term.
I like that Politico's not even pretending.
Most transparent administration in history.
In a way, that's true.
Yes, you can see right through them.
To their mendacious core.
To their mendacious core.
To their mendacious core.
That doesn't mean the insurance companies will allow people to keep those plans. The whole reason those plans were done away with is because the premiums weren't high enough. Maybe they'll let you keep the old plan, but definitely not your old premium.
Juice|3.5.14 @ 5:04PM|#
"That doesn't mean the insurance companies will allow people to keep those plans."
Obo doesn't care about that; this is a ruse to get people to blame the companies rather than his stupidity.
what Sevo said
When I told someone about the fact that my old plan is going away (well before October btw) and my only options are now to pay double the premium for double the deductible or triple the premium for the same deductible, they said "blame the insurance company for that. Obamacare isn't responsible for that." Then I slapped him. In my mind I did.
Ezekial Emanuel just reasserted that the intended consequence is the destruction of private health care insurance. Blue Cross somehow thinks they will avoid being devoured by the lion by playing along. Kaiser Permanente thinks they'll be the ones to win after the insurance companies give up.
A+ Alt-text.
F- law "change".
Having grown up in the 70's, I always thought the US couldn't go lower than Richard Nixon in terms of Presidential evil/weirdness/paranoia, and lower than Jimmuh Carter in terms of Presidential incompetence/fecklessness/cupidity.
I was mistaken.
As bad a BOOOOOOSH was, Obama just takes that weird combination of "are you evil or stupid or both" to new Peak Derp every day.
It is revolting, frightening and - finally - exhausting and soul sucking. I just don't care any more. What a fucking asshole he is.
But at least he ended racial strife/ Nick Gillespie
It's true. I have a dream that one day, as an old person enjoying my pancakes at IHOP, I am suddenly face to face with ex-President Obama doing a photo-op. I tell him, in front of cameras, to not drone me after loudly calling him a shit head.
Say it like this, "Don't drone me, bro!"
I'm waiting for ol Shrike, Palin's Buttplug, or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days to chime in as to how it's all ok, because Bush was worse, because he invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and stuff! Of course, we can withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan whenever we want, but we can't withdraw from Obamacare. Seems like this is the domestic version of stupid wars, only worse, because you can never pack up and leave.
Well, you pack up and turn over 13,000 armored personnel carriers to local police, just in case anyone gets any silly ideas
You forgot the part about putting two wars on a credit card.
Almanian, it was pretty apparent in 2008 that he is/was all that you say, but I have been shocked at how much I underestimated the degree of it. I thought it was moronic to vote for him then, but given how bad McCain is I could almost forgive it.
In 2012 it was crystal clear what he is and it is unconscionable that he was re-elected. There is no excuse for voting for him despite Romney's awfulness. He should have never made it to the election after what he did in Fast and Furious. He should be in jail.
I find it soul sucking also that he still has legions of supporters. I weep for my country, I truly do.
This is so transparently a craven political maneuver to dodge the consequences of a complete pile of shit law, and yet I am afraid it may greatly ameliorate the damage they suffer at the voting booth.
My god, we are drowning in idiots.
We must raise the delay ceiling in order to maintain national integrity.
We must not allow the Russians to maintain an executive order gap.
Oh, delay. I thought it said, "Administration Announces Another Obamacare Day." You know, a holiday. Like Cinco de Mayo.
That's the day after Cinco de Cuatro, right?
No, it's the day after Cinco de Mustard.
"""Like Cinco de Mayo.""'
So I won't be allowed to wear an American flag on Obamacare Day?
Wear nothing at all, like the emperor.
Ya know, H & R, would it kill ya to throw in a link to original sources, like the administration announcement itself, any quasi-legal explications of exactly what they are doing, etc.?
What changes, exactly, to regulations, enforcement policy, whatever, does this really amount to?
This is going to be like the "doc fix". Every couple of years they will delay it again, and again.
What they should really do is just permanently legalize selling these plans off-exchange.
Meaning that if you have one you don't have to pay the penalty.
You mean, every couple of months they'll delay it (as they figure out other politically bad aspects of the law). Stay tuned for more fixes....
If you legalize choice, then the coercive risk sharing of the exchange pools fall apart. The way this works is the players in the pool shortly have to set their rates for 2015 based on their "experience" - the costs of deferred operations of the previously uninsured, lack of participation by the healthy young, the high rates of nonpayment and cancellation, the withdrawal of providers. This action more or less concedes that the exchange pools will be only the people with expensive chronic problems. You ain't seen nothing yet of what premiums will become.
Obama turned the insurance industry and its customers upside down with layers and layers of regulation, mandates, and bizarre policy objectives. At this point, there is no going back to the pre Obamacare state of affairs - delay or not. Furthermore, all these delays and the arbitrary way it is being implemented (rule of law be damned) simply undermine the practical viability of the law. Uncertainty and non compliance will be the death of Obamacare.
This delay is a desperate political move where the administration unwittingly is waiving the white flag on Obamacare.
waiving the white flag
That is a typo worthy of John.
To be replaced by a "temporary" emergency government run replacement for private insurance for all
I am going to be really disappointed if I don't see some good political ads making a mockery of this timeline of "fixes".
Prepare to be really disappointed. The Republicans do not possess such high level capacities.
I don't know. I'd take an even odds bet Obamacare will never be implemented. By the time all the delays are past so much damage will have been done Dem or Republican, it will be scrapped.
Hilary had her own plan during Bill's years that was shot down. If she wins, likely it will be dusted off.
I can't see a Dem president throwing his/her legacy away on Obamacare. And, a Republican will write something else also. It will not go back to the way it was.