CHICAGO TRIBUNE CALLS FOR OBAMACARE DELAY AND REDO....Obama’s hometown paper slams ObamaCare implementation The Chicago Tribune, President Barack Obama’s hometown paper, slammed the administration’s efforts to implement ObamaCare in an editorial on Sunday and called for a delay and rewrite of the law. Noting the recent delays of various provisions of the law — including the employer mandate, subsidy verification requirements, and consumer-cost caps — the Chicago Tribune explains that the Obama Administration had tacitly admitted that ObamaCare can’t work as currently written and that it has left both businesses and the American people reeling. “The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is a hugely complex law that sets up online health insurance marketplaces, requires people to have coverage or pay penalties, and doles out subsidies and incentives to nearly everyone in health care,” wrote the paper’s editorial board. “Doctors, hospitals and insurers have spent large sums to gear up for its requirements. Employers are mulling: Hire? Fire? Cut workers’ hours?” “Millions of Americans, that is, stand to gain or lose from how this law is enforced — with the Obama administration bending that enforcement in ways that test, and arguably exceed, the boundaries of lawful conduct,” the paper explained, adding that each delay of a provision has a “massive ripple effect” on other parts of the law. “It’s generally a zero-sum game: When someone gains, someone else loses,” the editorial board added. “Example: When employers are relieved of their mandate to provide insurance, taxpayers risk having to subsidize more of those companies’ employees.” The Chicago Tribune also noted the constitutional implications of President Obama’s selectively enforcing various provisions of the law, ceding that critics of unilateral executive action to delay parts of ObamaCare have a point. Furthermore, they also took a shot at recent statements made by President Obama about his expansion of power in delaying parts of the law. President Obama said that “tweaks” to the law were preferable, but excused his unilateral delays of the law complaining about the political environment in Washington. The House of Representatives, by the way, passed a measure to codify the employer mandate delay, but the White House issued a veto threat in response. But the Chicago Tribune quickly dispensed of President Obama’s excuses. “Tweaks? Obama isn’t making tweaks. He’s trying to circumvent major flaws that began flaring when the law was enacted,” wrote the paper’s editorial board. “Hence the many carve-outs, delays and special deals that have been piling up since he added his signature to Obamacare on March 23, 2010.” The implementation programs and delays of ObamaCare are more major that they seem. Avik Roy noted yesterday at Forbes that the Obama Administration has missed 56% of the statutory deadlines for the law. With the delays of some of ObamaCare’s major provisions, the Chicago Tribune called for Congress to revisit healthcare policy. “Bottom line: Let’s delay and rewrite this ill-conceived law. Congress need not start from scratch. Lawmakers can build on what all of us have learned from three years of painful trial and error,” they explained. “Three years of attempting, but failing, to make this clumsy monstrosity work for the American people.” Republicans, who were largely shut out of the legislative process when the law was passed in 2010, have proposed a number of healthcare policy alternatives that would spare Americans from the complexity and harmful affects of ObamaCare. Unfortunately, President Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing ahead with a costly law that will break the bank and drive up the cost of health insurance. unitedliberty.org/articles/14647-obamas-hometown-paper-slams-obamacare-implementation
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 01:35:54 +0000
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