White House Extends 'Individual Mandate' Deadline

by JASmius

Sorry, gentles, but I told y'all so.

Ted Cruz must be sooooooooo jealous:

The Obama administration is giving individuals who buy health insurance through government-run marketplaces until the end of March to enroll in a plan without a penalty, an administration official said.

The administration plans to issue guidelines soon to clear up confusion over deadlines under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, according to the official, who asked for anonymity Wednesday because the change hadn’t been formally announced.

The open enrollment period extends from October 1 to March 31. Under the law, anyone who isn’t covered for three months or longer faces a financial penalty for not having insurance. In order for the insurance to take effect, uninsured Americans would have to sign up by Feb. 15 to avoid facing fines.

The change effectively gives individuals an extra six weeks to enroll.

It's illegal and unconstitutional, of course.  A president, under the law, has no more authority to legislate changes to the text of any statute than Lebron James does, under NBA game rules, to clothesline Derrick Rose into the basket support on his way to a game-winning dunk.  But he's done it anyway - again - because he believes he has the power to do it.  And he's got a five year baseline of support for that tyrannical view.

The reason why he did it is obvious - as rapidly as this fiasco is metastasizing, it was crystal clear that unless there was some kind, any kind of individual mandate deferral, lots and lots of youths were going to be getting hit with fines "punishment taxes" for failing to sign up for ObamaCare coverage they couldn't access through the web portal that doesn't work, the toll free number (800-F1UCKYO) that won't connect, the U.S. Postal Service that loses their paper forms, the Pony Express whose horses are all dead, the Greek messengers from Marathon who've all come down with gout, the passenger pigeons whose wings have all fallen off, the toy boats that have all sunk, and the paper airplanes that blew away on the first stiff breeze.  That would generate a tsunami of pissed-off-edness in so much of the electorate that 2014 would go from "Will the Democrats hold the Senate?" to "Will the GOP gain a filibuster-proof majority?"  And the House?  How about a veto-proof Republican majority?  And the hammer blow to O's own prestige and "aura" - and therefore power, particularly with the media beginning to disengage their interests from his - would vastly complicate any move to complete his coup ahead of schedule.

This represents the minimum the White House has to do right now.  It's a stop-gap to buy them six additional weeks to get "up and running" via their latest IT Choom Gang a system that Sebelius has already let slip needed three years more development time than they allowed it.  Which is to say, six weeks from now there'll be another "short delay," and then another, and another, while O spins more and more furiously and pathetically, until he's reduced to standing on D.C. street corners begging people to take free pocket shrimpers with the ObamaCare "NO PREMIUMS UNTIL THE TWENTY-SECOND CENTURY!!!" coupons he won't be able to unload as bathroom tissue.

You know the Overton window of ObamaCare repeal?  It's coming over the horizon - like a cruise missile.  O's latest act proves that he is harrowingly aware of it.