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Another day, another Obamacare delay. HHS issued new, er, guidance late yesterday afternoon about how the health care law’s individual mandate will be enforced on those who did not purchase insurance on time. In short, for those who managed to buy insurance by May 1, it won’t be enforced at all. This is the third postponement of the individual mandate.The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein explains: Starting in 2014, individuals who did not purchase government approved insurance were supposed to be subject to a penalty of $95 or 1 percent of taxable income. Under the original sequence of events, individuals would...

Though Coach is Right published this piece in early January, the subject matter may be even more pertinent today as countless doctors refuse to treat ObamaCare patients, hospitals deny them admittance and the negative impact of the law has moved from talking point to reality. When Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Supreme Court’s Marxist bloc in ruling the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate constitutional, stunned conservatives immediately accused him of committing an “act of judicial cowardice.” “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices,” wrote the supremely hypocritical Roberts as...

One by one, the myths of the Affordable Care Act have been revealed. When the curtain on open enrollment falls on March 31, the last remaining big myth of ObamaCare will be fully exposed: The individual mandate has failed. After a last-ditch effort with President Obama himself encouraging "young invincibles" to sign up before the deadline, the administration is scrambling to boost enrollment. On Tuesday, the White House announced that people who applied for coverage on the federal health-insurance exchange will have until mid-April to finish the paperwork. The mandate was supposed to be the administration's magical elixir for the...

The White House will not delay the “individual mandate” at the core of Obamacare, a top Administration official said Sunday. “That will not happen,” top White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, amid Republican calls for a delay of the requirement that Americans have health insurance by March 31 or incur a fine assessed with their 2013 tax return. The original deadline, Feb. 15, was extended amid the disastrous rollout of the administrations website for policy shopping, healthcare.gov. The administration has already delayed the law’s employer coverage requirements.

2014 is the first year most Americans will have to either have health insurance or face a tax penalty. But most people who are aware of the penalty think it's pretty small, at least for this first year. And that could turn into an expensive mistake. "I'd say the vast majority of people I've dealt with really believe that the penalty is only $95, if they know about it at all," says Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. "And when people find out, they're stunned. It's much, much higher than they would expect."...

.... But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable." This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another...

Health and Human service released a seven page bulletin Wednesday announcing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service's decision to extend the transitional policy of the Affordable Care Act by two years, to Oct. 1, 2016. Effectively, this makes the individual mandate -- the requirement that all individuals purchase insurance by the end of March or face a tax penalty -- considered by many to be the backbone of the Affordable Care Act, an option one can opt out of rather than a requirement. The transitional policy allows for hardship exemption from the tax penalty if an individual can’t afford...

Death Blow: Almost two years ago, President Obama's solicitor general told the Supreme Court that without the individual mandate, ObamaCare would fail. But after winning that victory, the administration itself has effectively killed the mandate. In his oral arguments before the court, Donald Verrilli made it abundantly clear that, without the individual mandate, ObamaCare would "make matters worse, not better." As he told the justices, the "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" regulations at the heart of ObamaCare won't work if you let the young and healthy choose not to buy insurance.

He forgot to mention it. Minor oversight, could have happened to anybody.The mandate, remember, has already been suspended this year for people who had their old insurance canceled and who now regard it as a “hardship” to purchase insurance on the supposedly affordable Affordable Care Act exchanges. For them, as Ezra Klein put it at the time, “ObamaCare itself is the hardship.” But there’s an obvious problem with that scheme: The “hardship” exemption applies only to people who used to have insurance, and it applies only for this enrollment period. The mandate penalty would continue to bite people who...

House Republicans are considering a bill this week that delays the enforcement of ObamaCare's individual mandate penalties for five years, and uses the savings to prevent a cut in Medicare doctor payments for 10 years. The two ideas are likely to be combined into a single bill: the Sustainable Growth Rate Repeal and Medicare Provider Payment Modernization Act, H.R. 4015. That bill repeals cuts to physician payments, and allows for small increases over 10 years.

ObamaCare's Exemption HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years. But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable." This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. People can also...

The Obama administration will not delay ObamaCare's individual mandate or the March 31 deadline for enrolling in the new healthcare law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.Sebelius offered the assurance during testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee, where Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) noted the administration has made dozens of other changes or delays to the law. ADVERTISEMENT Given problems caused by ObamaCare's faulty website last year, Brady asked Sebelius directly if delays to the individual mandate or enrollment deadline were next.“No sir,” Sebelius responded on both counts.

**SNIP** The distraction of Ukraine and the media’s numbness to the stream of Obamacare travails is providing time and a smokescreen for Obama to prepare a big announcement for after March 31, 2014: The BIG PUNT, i.e. a delay in the individual mandate. The White House and their Democratic allies must realize that they are on a trajectory to lose the Senate in 2014 and are likely coming to terms with the idea that delaying the individual mandate is one way to attempt to change that path. Look for the president to bite the bullet and give in to the...

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on Wednesday to reduce the fine/“tax” for violating Obamacare’s individual mandate this year to $0. It will be interesting to see how Democrats in both the House and Senate react. President Obama has plainly violated the law—and the constitutional separation of powers—by unilaterally delaying the individual mandate for some people (those who liked their health plan but got a cancellation notice) and by unilaterally delaying the employer mandate. Given these extralegal executive actions, and given the technological train wreck than the Obamacare exchange rollout has been, it would seem to be a...

The president and his Democratic allies are finding it harder to make people buy insurance than they’d expected. Will Obamacare’s individual mandate survive? Last month, the administration announced that anyone with a canceled 2013 individual insurance plan would be exempt from the “individual-responsibility requirement” this year, and would be allowed to buy the catastrophe-only insurance previously offered to those age 30 or under. This exemption is likely only the first of many. How, for one, can the administration exempt people who had insurance last year but not exempt people who were uninsured because they couldn’t afford coverage? Obamacare’s architects were...

...a single taxpayer would have to have an income of about $190,400 before the penalty for a full year would overtake the lower end of the estimated average bronze premium range (again, based on an estimated 2016 filing threshold: (2.5% × [$190,400 − $10,400] = $4,500)). For a married couple, the corresponding household income would be $500,800 (2.5% × [$500,800 − $20,800] = $12,000).

Ezra Klein: Give me your status report on Obamacare. Where do you think the law stands now? Robert Laszewski: They’re about where I expected them to be. HealthCare.Gov on the front-end is in pretty good shape. It’s where it should’ve been at launch. The back-end is still highly problematic. Clearly the administration put its emphasis on the consumer side. Insurers are still seeing errors in probably 5 percent of the files coming through. That’s compounded by the issue of all the people enrolling in the last few weeks. That’s a huge surge that would create customer-service problems in the best...

**SNIP** The expanded hardship exemption, for instance, "opened a major can of worms," wrote analyst James Capretta on the Weekly Standard blog. "The administration said for months that the mandate would not be waived for anyone, even those with canceled policies, and it vowed a veto of any delay legislation coming out of Congress. Now the rules have been changed, and some families who have committed to pay thousands of dollars in insurance premiums will feel very personally betrayed by an untrustworthy administration." They join millions of others who are reeling from massive premium increases under this onerous law. Over...

The White House loosened the rules for Obamacare on Thursday, telling people whose health insurance plans got canceled that they won't have to comply with the law's individual mandate in 2014. How is that fair? critics ask. Many foresee more changes ahead. Good news for people who’ve lost their health insurance because it doesn’t meet "Obamacare" standards: The White House announced Thursday night that it’s going to cut these folks something of a break. They won’t be subject to the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate for 2014, meaning they won’t have to pay a tax penalty if they don’t get...

She's not the 'Smartest Woman In the World', but she may be the most hypocritical and potentially destructive.[/caption] When I have an informal discussion with folks about what the future looks like, particularly with respect to 2016, inevitably the topic of Hillary Clinton comes up. What my friends are especially wondering and concerned about is “do you think Hillary Clinton will win the White House?” It is a daunting proposition. Even my 90 year old mom shudders at the prospect. While there is no underestimating the foolishness and gullibility of the mass electorate, the impressions I'm gathering as I...