The Lawless Presidency

In a move both transparently political and utterly contemptuous of the rule of law, the Obama administration has yet again made changes to the healthcare law. The Treasury Department issued a fact sheet Monday, outlining the new regulations (laughingly referred to as “final”). They now give employers with 50-99 employees until 2016 to comply with ObamaCare’s employer mandate. In addition, employers with 100 or more workers who originally had to cover 95 percent of them to be in compliance will only have to offer coverage to 70 percent of their employees next year, transitioning to the original percentage by 2016. In short, a law written and passed by Congress and signed by the president is becoming whatever the Obama administration wants it to be.

And as usual, the administration wants it both ways. Even as it disputes the idea that ObamaCare is causing many companies to eliminate employees as a means of getting below the 50-worker threshold when the mandate kicks in, Treasury officials warned that businesses must “certify” they are not eliminating workers to avoid that mandate. Employers will self-attest to this reality on their tax forms under penalty of perjury.

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