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President Obama again changed the rules yesterday by delaying and giving certain employers extra time before they have to offer health insurance for full time workers.

The Treasury Department announced the rule change in which employers with 50-99 workers have until 2016, before they must comply with the health care mandate.  This gives employers an extra two years, but companies with 100 or more workers have a different requirement.

Larger employers can avoid paying a fine by covering 70% of their employees instead of having to cover 95% as was originally required in 2015.

Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur, “Today’s final regulations phase in the standards to ensure that larger employers either offer quality, affordable coverage or make an employer responsibility payment starting in 2015 to help offset the cost to taxpayers of coverage or subsidies to their employees.”

Republicans reacted to the announcement by the White House, “If unilateral delays were an Olympic sport, the White House would sweep the gold, silver, and bronze,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a statement. “The White House is in full panic mode, and rather than putting politics ahead of the public, it is time for fairness for all.” 

The original employer mandate was to take effect Jan 1st, just like the individual mandate requiring all Americans to have health insurance. 

“Once again, the president is giving a break to corporations while individuals and families are still stuck under the mandates of his health care law.  And, once again, the president is rewriting law on a whim,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. “If the administration doesn’t believe employers can manage the burden of the law, how can struggling families be expected to?”

The question that is missing in the debate, can the president unilaterally changing a law without congressional approval?  As it states in the constitution, “the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”  This provision in Article II Section III will have to be adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court on its constitutionality.

The president is setting a dangerous precedent by enforcing laws he likes and changing others that are politically damaging to the administration.  How would future presidents go about enforcing laws approved by Congress? 

Both political parties need to be alarmed at this constitutional precedent set by this administration.

The second question is what affect does this change have on the rest of the health care law, as change in one area dramatically changes other parts of the law.

The third and final point that has to be made; what is real cost of the Affordable Care Act?

There have been over twenty five changes, delays, and other exemptions to the law; what is the real cost and how will this affect the national debt?  We were told this would not add one dime to the debt, but all the arguments the president has made have proven false.

The time has come for real answers and not political gamesmanship!

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