The Obama Administration continues to make it up as they go and willfully disregard Federal law as they do. It was announced last night that individuals who have fallen victim to the disaster of HealthCare.gov no longer have to complete sign up by the March 31 deadline.
Using an ‘honor system’ of checking a box saying they ran into problems, consumers trying to use the federal exchanges are granted a reprieve of a yet to be determined amount of time.
Once again Health and Human Services (HHS) is playing with deadlines established in the 2010 Affordable Care Act and possibly acting in violation of the law.
Just two weeks ago the administration said it could not alter the deadline if they wanted to.
HHS official Julie Bataille said in a conference call with reporters, “We have no plans to extend the open enrollment period. In fact, we don’t actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.”
Clearly ‘statutory authority’ – i.e. the law – means nothing to this president.
Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, wrote in the L.A. Times recently about a different deadline alteration by the administration, “There is no statutory authority for the change — simply the raw assertion of executive power. The United States is at a constitutional tipping point: The rise of an uber presidency unchecked by the other two branches.”
