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ObamaCare in Trouble

Or does the latest delay signal a more sinister purpose?

By Stu Nolan

Ramesh Ponnuru nicely identifies "Six Inconvenient Truths About ObamaCare" in his column today. The best portion persuasively posits as follows:

"Unlike most previous social-policy milestones, this law was jammed through Congress over the opposition of all Republicans, some Democrats and most of the public. The financial crisis had delivered the Democrats such large majorities in 2008 that they could accomplish longstanding ideological goals that had nothing to do with that crisis. Nor did Obama himself have a mandate for the law, having campaigned against some of its most controversial features -- for instance, the individual mandate and the new taxes on health insurance -- during his 2008 presidential run."

Punnuru has previously discussed one flaw in particular that we have been watching closely, as well. This flaw could be fatal to the signal legislative "achievement" of this administration. Specifically, ObamaCare does not provide authority for the federal government to set up the health insurance exchanges contemplated in the scheme; the states must do so. Nonetheless, in the many states that have declined to set up exchanges, the federal government is assuming that role.

The Obama administration's most recent delay in implementing a key provision of ObamaCare is widely perceived, not only constitutionally problematic, but also as yet another setback in the implementation of the so-called "health care reform" legislation.

However, Grace-Marie Turner, writing for National Review, reports on a more intriguing -- and a darker -- insight offered by American Action Forum president Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Specifically, Holtz-Eakin plausibly argues that the delay in enforcing the employer mandate likely enlists the help of employers in pushing persons into the ranks of the uninsured and then into the exchange scheme envisioned in ObamaCare.

Perhaps, but then again, the move could backfire if it emboldens opposition to delay and eventually abandon the entire ObamaCare project.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, a legislative battle reminds William Saunders, senior vice president of Americans United for Life, of the "disdain for conscience rights demonstrated by the Obama administration with its 'HHS mandate'."

*** Update***

Andrew McCarthy has nicely explained how the Obama Administration's modus operandi, including in particular the delayed in implementing the Employer Mandate, has been antithetical to the Rule of Law. Here's the takeaway:

"In a vibrant, pluralistic society, law, as an expression of the sovereign will, is unavoidably a product of compromise. In the contentious process, the competing sides bend; they settle on something that neither, given their druthers, would support; and they honorably agree to abide by the result. Under Obama, however, massive laws are enacted ? such that no one can conceivably know what the law is. Then the president enforces the parts he approves of, contemptuously disregards the parts that enticed naysayers into compromising, and presumes to amend or repeal inconvenient provisions at his whim.

That is not the rule of law. It is how a dictatorship works."