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12/2/14, "The president rewrites the ObamaCare law--again," NY Post, Betsy McCaughey
"On Thanksgiving eve, the Obama administration dumped reams of
mind-numbing ObamaCare regulations into the Federal Register — including
yet more unilateral rewrites of the Affordable Care Act.
Dropping the rules as most Americans were busy preparing for the
holiday made a mockery (again) of President Obama’s promise to have “the
most transparent administration in history.” The stunt has even worked
to keep most of the media from reporting on the rules.
Yet the changes these regulations make in the health care law are substantial.
For one, the president is redefining what health plans are “adequate”
for larger employers (100-plus workers) to offer under the Affordable
Care Act. He’s also “asking” insurers to pay for new benefits — while
warning that, if they don’t, they may be forced to.
Under the Constitution, Obama lacks any authority to make such
changes to the health law, or any law. Only Congress has that power. But
he’s doing it, and not for the first time.
The president has made two dozen changes to his health law by
executive fiat, from delaying the employer mandate to allowing people to
keep health plans that don’t meet ObamaCare standards.
In fact, the House of Representatives is suing him (after Obama
explicitly challenged it to do so) for making changes without Congress’
OK....
In any case, last week’s changes, like the president’s previous
fixes, create new losers as well as winners — the sort of tradeoffs that
legislators are supposed to weigh in our system of government.
The
basics:
*Obama will require large employers to provide more coverage than
the Affordable Care Act specifies. The move disqualifies plans now
offered by 1,600 employers to 3 million workers, according to Kaiser
Health News. Those employers will have to find a way to cover the higher
costs — and some will surely do so by stopping coverage for spouses or
part-time workers.
* The new rules suddenly treat state high-risk pools as adequate
coverage under the Affordable Care Act — a 180 from what the law
actually says.
When the ACA became law, these plans for people with chronic illnesses
were offered in 35 states. Winners will be those who live in the 10
states that haven’t yet phased out their high-risk plans. Losers: the
many thousands in 25 states that already gave up their plans to comply
with the ACA’s mandates.
*The rules tell insurers to give new enrollees a 30-day grace period
during which they can continue to use doctors not in their plan’s
network. Winners: people who need time to switch to in-network doctors.
Losers: taxpayers — who’ll be obliged to bail out the insurers clobbered
with the extra cost.
*Speaking of bailouts, Section 1342 of the law promises
taxpayer-funded bailouts to insurers that lose money selling plans on
ObamaCare exchanges. But the bailouts can’t happen unless Congress
appropriates the money, something the GOP-controlled Congress won’t want
to do. Yet the new Federal Register notices explicitly double down on
the administration’s pledge to make insurers whole if losses are bigger
than expected.
By repeatedly contradicting the letter of the Affordable Care Act,
these new rules add to a pattern of lawlessness in implementing the
health law — even as the administration’s boldest misreading of the law
is before the Supreme Court.
Two years after the justices ruled 5-4 to uphold ObamaCare’s
individual mandate, the health law is back in front of the high court.
The issue this time, in King v. Burwell, is whether Obama is
violating the law by handing out taxpayer-funded subsidies to ObamaCare
enrollees in all 50 states. The letter of the law clearly allows
subsidies only in the 14 states that established their own exchanges.
If the Supreme Court rules against the administration, enrollees
would have to pay the actual cost of ObamaCare premiums — which would
mean staggering hikes of 400 percent in many cases.
That could be the end of the president’s health law — or at least
force him to actually negotiate with Congress on a complete rewrite
tantamount to the Republicans’ “Repeal and replace” refrain.
Will the justices endorse the president’s rewriting of the law on
ObamaCare subsidies? If so, they’ll surely be facing even more cases
down the line, over all his other unilateral changes to his signature
statute."
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