The Chavinista who occupies the White House is about to change the law by executive decree yet again. Ed Morrissey:
How blatant is this latest unilateral change from the Obama administration on the law they claim is working well? The Hill can’t avoid connecting the dots in its lead sentence:
The Obama administration is set to announce another major delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act, easing election pressure on Democrats.
As early as this week, according to two sources, the White House will announce a new directive allowing insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet ObamaCare’s minimum coverage requirements.
ADVERTISEMENTProlonging the “keep your plan” fix will avoid another wave of health policy cancellations otherwise expected this fall.
The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day.
Actually, HHS thought they had already avoided that outcome with its previous extension. That pushed off the deadline for plans to meet the requirements of ObamaCare until January 1, 2015, which is after the midterms. However, none of the geniuses at HHS seemed to know that insurers have to send out cancellation notices 90 days in advance, which would mean that letters would go out no later than October 1 … five weeks or so before the vote.
D’oh!
There seems to be wide agreement among legal scholars — even staunch liberals such as Jonathan Turley — that the President’s executive decrees are unconstitutional and undermine the separation of powers. Yet everyone seems to agree that nothing can be done about it because no one has “legal standing” to challenge these edicts — they don’t “create a sufficiently concrete injury for standing.”
Personally, I think that destroying my right to live under a government of laws, not of men, and to have those laws made by my elected representatives as mandated by the Constitution is a pretty significant injury. But I’m not a legal expert with an Ivy League degree.
Dr. Larry Kawa is arguing, with the help of Judicial Watch, that he does have standing, having spent significant time and money to ensure that his orthodontics practice is in compliance with the law as written. He has appealed the district court’s dismissal of his lawsuit to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. More power to him.
