From any objective viewpoint, the Affordable Care Act is a mess. It is such a mess that Americans don’t even know what it is all about, as comedian Jimmy Kimmel found out when he sent a camera crew out into the street – see the video below.
After its roll out in early October, 2013, including the dismal failure of the healthcare.gov website, provisions of the act have been compromised, delayed or negated.
There are many things we don’t know about the Act – is it legal, is it constitutional?
Democrats say that because the Republicans don’t like Obamacare, they have no say in whether some provisions are delayed.
That makes no sense whatsover. If that was the case, then Democrats should have no say in any republican bill they don’t like.
The unfirable Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, said the Affordable Care Act “was passed and signed three years ago. It was upheld by the Supreme Court over a year ago. The president was re-elected. This is the law of the land.”
Ok, well, that is the way the system works. So how is it that President Obama can override a law passed by Congress? Did Obama suddenly gain a slew of new powers? Has he transitioned from President to King or Dictator?
Proving that the U.S. system is truly broken, Fox News’s Ed Henry asked President Obama, in a press conference, “If you pick and choose what parts of the law to implement, couldn’t your successor down the road pick and choose whether to implement your law and keep it in place?”
President Obama’s reponse, defending his use of executive authority to modify the Act nine times was, “in a normal political environment it would be easier to call up the speaker to introduce technical changes in the law. But there is no normal in Obamacare, and besides. I have executive authority to change.”
Barack Obama is a former constitutional law professor. It doesn’t appear that he understands the Constitution at all.
The Constitution clearly stipulates that Congress has the power to write laws, which the president must faithfully execute. What would be the response if a “President Romney” simply announced that he wasn’t going to administer Obamacare?
It is now obvious to everyone who is not rabidly ideological that the employer mandate kills jobs and weekly hours for workers. The lowering of verification standards for subsidies is a backdoor way to buy the business of this country’s young people who might not otherwise qualify.
The ongoing delays don’t even come close to fixing the known problems. There is a deep gloom of uncertainty casting a dark shadow over businesses and our economy. It definitely looks like this presidential democrat tinkering with the act serves mainly to delay the day of reckoning until after the midterm elections in November.
We will be watching, to see what tricks Obama pulls out of his hat as the midterms get closer.
