Dems’ Selective Outrage

‘Obamacare Liberals Silently Gutting Their Own Creation’

“It turns out the Obama team has delayed the individual mandate to buy health insurance — though the announcement was quiet and roundabout, to minimize the embarrassment. What we’re left with is a US health-care system whose engine has been partly disassembled…” (“The Obama Team Quietly Gives Up On Making ObamaCare Work,” The New York Post, 3/12/2014)

• “The government left the door wide open for millions of Americans to be excused from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most people must carry health insurance or pay a fine…” (The Washington Post, 4/25/2014)

WALL STREET JOURNAL: “ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.” (Editorial, “Obamacare's Secret Mandate Exemption,” The Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2014)

• “In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a ‘hardship’ that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts. But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you ‘believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy’ or ‘you consider other available policies unaffordable.’” (Editorial, “Obamacare's Secret Mandate Exemption,” The Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2014)

“HHS is also trying to pre-empt the inevitable political blowback from the nasty 2015 tax surprise of fining the uninsured for being uninsured, which could help reopen ObamaCare if voters elect a Republican Senate this November.” (Editorial, “Obamacare's Secret Mandate Exemption,” The Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2014)

“Keep in mind that the White House argued at the Supreme Court that the individual mandate to buy insurance was indispensable to the law's success, and President Obama continues to say he'd veto the bipartisan bills that would delay or repeal it. So why are ObamaCare liberals silently gutting their own creation now?” (Editorial, “Obamacare's Secret Mandate Exemption,” The Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2014)