Holy Cow, He Does It Again!
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
The Obama
administration has not been forthright with Congress and the American people in
explaining Fast and Furious, the Benghazi incident, the IRS scandal, the NSA
scandal, and his unilateral decision not to enforce immigration laws with
respect to young immigrants.
I understand most people know little of the
details of these scandals,unconstitutional maneuvers and bypassing of
congress because the traditional media have ignored the details
The lack of honesty, changing stories and delays in providing explanations
about these scandals has made the administration’s credibility even worse.
There are many who suggest that the authority President Obama has assumed
in bypassing congress through executive orders and regulations has been
unconstitutional.
The constitutionality of the Obama administration’s most recent action
has been to delay the implementation of the provisions in Obamacare’s mandates requiring
everyone to buy insurance or face a penalty.
I do believe it is unconstitutional to ignore the provisions in a law
without the consent of congress, which passed the law.
“A constitutional law professor
at George Washington University Jonathan Turley said that Obama “has been far
more aggressive in circumventing Congress and far more successful in creating
an imperial presidency” than Bush.”
“President
Barack Obama’s latest legal end run around Congress — delaying enforcement of
the employer health mandate — has sparked more questions about whether he’s
abusing his executive discretion under the Constitution.”
Many congressmen have complained, including some Democrats up for
reelection in 2014.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said,
“If President Obama wants to make changes to Obamacare, he must come to
Congress. … We are a nation governed by laws written by Congress, not memos
and blog posts written by bureaucrats.”
“President Obama will get his way,” said Michael Tanner.
Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, said
Obama appeared to be stretching his authority to the limit.
The legality is up in the air.”
When President Obama
has run into opposition to his political ideology he has gone around congress.
He is a master of “gotcha politics.”
“This is really a question of enforcement and when the
administration runs into practical difficulty, it delays enforcement,” he said.
"He predicted the administration would get its way in the end."
“I don’t see the courts intervening here. I’m sure Congress will
hold hearings but there really isn’t anything they can do.”
Unfortunately, Obamacare is the law of the land.
Obamacare is a stupid law. President Obama’s delaying implementation is
demonstrating that Obamacare is not going to work.
Obamacare will destroy the already
dysfunctional healthcare system for the reasons I have outlined.
This delay is
one of many Obamacare delays we are going to see in the coming months.
Others might include.
- Implementation of the mandate for individuals.
- Implementation of health insurance exchanges.
- Implementation of ACO’s.
- Implementation of Electronic Medical Records.
- IRS policing implementation of Obamacare.
There will be protests against the many waivers and exemptions from the
law that President Obama has given various groups including labor unions,
congressional members and government workers. These exemptions and desired
exemptions have not been reported in detail in the traditional media. I suspect
the exemptions will just happen without awareness by the public.
The Obama administration made a big mistake by spying on the Associated
Press reporters. The press has been his biggest ally in helping him get away
with all the stretching of his executive powers by not informing the public. Now
the press is angry and I suspect might not be as accommodating to him.
The law's implementation is turning into a fiasco for the ages,
and this week's version is the White House decision to delay the law's
insurance mandate for businesses, though not for individuals.
The employer mandate is central to Obamacare's
claim of providing universal coverage. Companies with 50 or more "employee
equivalents" must pay a $2,000 penalty per full-time employee if they
don't provide government-approved health insurance.
Mark Mazur, the deputy assistant Treasury
secretary for tax policy, published a blog Tuesday night July 2, the night
before the July 4 weekend holiday break canceling the insurance reporting rules
and tax enforcement until 2015.
This is a typical Obama administration tactic
hoping the cancellation would be forgotten after the weekend. It didn’t work.
People are still talking about a bureaucrat changing the rules of the law
because it cannot be executed.
“White House
fixer Valerie Jarrett tried to contain the fallout with a separate blog post
promising that ObamaCare is otherwise "staying the course." That's
true only if she's referring to the carelessness and improvisation that have
defined the law so far.”
The Treasury Department does not have the
computing ability to figure out who is complying with the law. The IRS does not
have the ability or manpower to police the law.
The law does not say the Obama administration
can impose the mandate whenever it feels it is politically convenient. The
individual mandate is next to go.
The damage from Obamacare has already occurred.
Healthcare insurance premiums have risen on average 20% this year.
Small and large companies are only hiring part
time people to avoid the penalty. (Under 30 hours per week). This week’s
unemployment figure was 195,000 only because of part time hiring. There was a
major decrease in full time workers.
There is an increase in non-insured as the
businesses are dropping healthcare insurance for employees.
Obamacare
has become a rolling "train wreck," in Senator Max Baucus's memorable
phrase, and it gets worse the more of it the public sees.
The employer mandate is terrible policy, as I
pointed out before it was passed. The Obama administration has now admitted that it
can't implement Obamacare properly or on time after Americans have been paying the 10
hidden taxes for the past two years.
Please wake up America.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone
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