Obama’s executive actions can backfire on Democrats if GOP takes the White House
Republican could dismantle his law
By Tom Howell Jr.-The Washington Times Sunday, February 16, 2014
President Obama's repeated use of executive powers to ease the rollout of his health care law could be setting the stage for Republicans to roll back the overhaul's most controversial parts if they retake the White House in 2016, say analysts who have tracked the law's shifting landscape.
The president has tweaked or delayed Obamacare’s mandates on employers and individuals without Congress on multiple occasions, each in a bid to put out a political firestorm caused by the law’s rocky rollout.
Although he is taking advantage of discretion built into the Affordable Care Act of 2010, those executive powers also would give “a future President Rand [Paul] or other ACA opponent room to throw a monkey wrench into the works and help try to dismantle the law from the inside,” said I. Glenn Cohen, a health policy analyst at Harvard Law School.
“That said, it was not the president’s decision to delay parts of implementation, so much as the design of the legislation itself, that leaves open this possibility,” he said.
Whether or not Mr. Obama is insulated by the law’s text, Republicans have portrayed Mr. Obama as an imperial leader with little regard for the legislative process. Most recently, Republican leaders ripped into the Obama administration for pumping the brakes on a mandate that requires large businesses to insure full-time employees or pay fines.
The Treasury last week said midsize companies now have until 2016 to comply with the employer mandate, and businesses with 100 or more workers will have more time to comply. The White House previously delayed the rule’s implementation from the start of this year to 2015.
“The president is setting a very dangerous precedent, as are the congressional Democrats who condone it,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
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