Obama's Insurance 'Fix' Is Unconstitutional ?

Obama has announced that people can keep their old insurance policies (for a year) as long as insurance companies and state commissions say ok.

He is over-riding the law now and has issued a letter to the state commissions saying the government won’t prosecute for policies that don’t meet the minimum standards spelled out in the PPACA law.

He is using Executive Privilege called ‘prosecutorial discretion’ or ‘executive discretion’ which basically allows him to direct authorities to selectively ignore unlawful acts.

This could easily be viewed as unconstitutional, but is certainly debatable.

This could also be a ‘bridging’ step leading to an amendment of the law by Congress.

Outlets are quoting Democratic operative Howard Dean saying of President Barack Obama suspending certain Obamacare requirements, “I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this.”

To remove all doubt: The Take Care Clause of the Constitution absolutely forbids any president from doing exactly what Obama did Thursday.

Obama said he would allow insurance companies to keep offering previously-offered insurance plans that Americans would like to keep. Nobody knows if this means all plans, or only some of them, and how the White House will make such determinations. He says he has “enforcement discretion” to make this change to the Affordable Care Act unilaterally, without consulting Congress.

Obama's Insurance 'Fix' Is Unconstitutional
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The Congress ordinarily has a power to mandate the execution of a law. Judge Kavanaugh writes that “[p]rosecutorial discretion does not include the power to disregard other statutory obligations that apply to the Executive Branch, such as statutory requirements to issue rules, or to pay benefits, or to implement or administer statutory projects or programs.” And certainly this is correct. It would be very surprising if the President could choose not to pay someone their social security benefits. If Congress passes a law that mandates the closing of a prison, that is required. If Congress passes a law that requires the executive to issue a particular regulation, it must do so.

So what is different in cases of prosecutorial discretion? (Before exploring this question, let me add that one can draw a distinction between federal civil laws and federal criminal laws. Are people arguing for prosecutorial discretion as to criminal actions only or also for civil actions? It is not clear what they arguing, but the arguments might differ somewhat……..

The President Does Not Have a Constitutional Power of Prosecutorial Discretion: Part I



Article II

This move by his lordship has moved me from the "alarmed" column to "out and out PO'd" column.

Remember when Democrats ranted about the near dictatorial powers of the Executive? Oh, yeah, that was when the other party had the White House. Now, it's perfectly ok to far eclipse Bush's abuses of power.

reply to post by xuenchen


While that is right and can be elaborated and debate and dissected and call it anyway you want, he will get away with it, because is only temporarily, is not long term. Remember that.

Heh, why did they even bother to introduce new laws?
They should have used a dry erase board, that would
have been much easier!

Well, looks like this is a win win for Barry, he
has everyone in a double bind, even triple bind now.

And no one is standing in his way.

Of course, nevermind that those policies to which he refers no longer exist as products anymore. They were cancelled, and their pools dissolved. This is just fragmenting what customer pools remained and will only raise premiums.

Not to mention, how excited would I be as an insurance company to create these new policies which are not technically legal (the old ones, the grandfathered ones, were cancelled) based only on the President's assurances and only for one year before we have to go through this chaos all over again?

I'm thinking not likely at all.

No, this all just a very cynical play to attempt to shift blame away from government and back toward the "mean" old insurance companies who will now almost certainly not be renewing those old policies.

Well, Barry has more trouble on his hands now ( or is he secretly behind
the curtain clapping and laughing? )

State insurance commissioner rejects Obama’s proposal
to extend canceled policies

State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has rejected President Obama’s proposal to allow insurance companies to extend health insurance policies for people who have received notices that their policies will be cancelled at the end of the year.

Within two hours of President Obama’s news conference announcing the proposed administrative fix for Americans upset by their policy cancellations, Kreidler issued a statement rejecting the proposal.

“I understand that many people are upset by the notices they have recently received from their health plans and they may not need the new benefits [in the Affordable Care Act] today,” he said. “But I have serious concerns about how President Obama’s proposal would be implemented and more significantly, its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market.”

“I do not believe his proposal is a good deal for the state of Washington,” Kreidler’s statement continued. “We will not be allowing insurance companies to extend their policies.”
blogs.seattletimes.com...

Now how's that oath go.........

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Oath of Office

Now correct if I'm wrong but the "executive" carries out laws passed by the houses of congress. The president does not make law only carries out the law - or did I miss something in school?

Picking and choosing what you like is not an option, nowhere did I read the ala carte clause of the constitution, can someone tell me which one that is?

Folks, what is going to take to impeach? how much more blatant can it get!

I want to assume his enter circle of Constitutional experts "navigated" him to a clear opening on his statement but at this point I have almost no faith in anyone on his staff since he has stated on numerous instances he does not know what is going on. I also have no faith in his own education since he still has not released his transcripts where Bush and Cheney have, to include DUI citations.

As he stated today, he would not have released the exchange site if he had known of the severe consequences of its flaws. He said it would be "stupid" to do so. Hold that thought for just a minute....

Would stupid be considered for a world leader to keep making poor decisions because people he selected to inform him failed to do so and not try to fix it. He has had an ample amount of time to convey to them that he must be informed of critical information no matter what. Mexican gun running, IRS scandal, Benghazi, NSA, Obamacare...

So in summary I agree with him, he is in fact stupid. Stupid for not demanding and holding people accountable for not informing him about pertinent information consistently. Now if he would just admit to everyone he is an effin liar as well then that would be two points I would agree with him on.

reply to post by xuenchen

wow. i heard lots of "obamacare is the LAW, deal with it" from it's supporters recently, but now what will they say when the great architect of the affordable care act is going back on what he said yet again?

"we will not negotiate. obamacare will not be delayed, it's already law. deal with it. ok, now that we have THAT taken care of, let's delay it for a year." paraphrasing obama on this one.

I can't stand Obama but frankly, this is just noise. After 8 years of Bush and the way Obama has gotten away with the same crap and more for 5 years, nothing he does is ever going to be the kind of illegal that gets presidents thrown out of office.

The man doesn't have any real political enemies. Whatever they decide to do to us, we're just stuck with it. We wouldn't even be hearing about this "If you like your insurance you can keep it" thing if TPTB didn't want us to.

Evidently, they set it up this way on purpose and always intended to come back to rewrite it at this point. For what purpose I couldn't tell you. All I know is there are very few accidents with these people and the lies Obama tells are all truths unless the MSM chooses to acknowledge them as lies.

I'll tell you what I think.

I think there have been plenty of blatant lies they (more or less) completely ignored. Why does this one matter any more than any of the rest of them? I'll tell you why. Because the insurance companies are obviously in on it and have been all along. They needed to make it look like the insurance industry had something tangible to lose so they could put on a good show and pretend to be against Obamacare. That way the braindead liberal base would think Obama was taking on "big business" and fighting for the little guy. If you've been watching Obama carefully, you know that's a bunch of BS. But his fans believe it and to them, if you're against Obamacare, you are trying to deprive them of their right to be forced to buy insurance (Why that's bad, they can't quite say).

It doesn't matter that the mandate that forces millions of people into a market they may not even want to be in isn't even supposed to exist in the first place but it seems to matter that millions of people were not going to be able to keep their crappy insurance.

Gee. What does it all mean?

Why has NO ONE stepped up, and like in the Nixon final days (Nixon, only guilty of covering up a botched break in!) taken the long, slow walk to the Oval Office and pointed out "for the good of the nation, Sir, you NEED to resign."

Egregious, highly personalized harm (what is more basic to ones being than their health?) is being done to Americans. Not a lie about covering up a sleazy political dirty trick (Nixon); reading GWHBush's lips about "NO new taxes;" Bill Clinton's pathetic meaning of "is."* NO this is the eptitome personal and physical a government malfeasance waged against the citizen. Health care treatments, medications, are not something that can delay til 2015 (after more Dems CYAs)...NO it happens real time!

How many will LITERALLY suffer physical and financial harm due to this abject Clusterfug?

No one in DC has the cojones to impeach (too many fellow Ivy League cowards needed to do the heavy lifting) but a few who took their Oath's of Office seriously, should take that walk FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE not protecting one man's legacy or one political party.

/Rant off.

*I omitted GWB's because I believe their IS/WAS evidence of WMDs (but that's for another thread!)

This morning in the news Obama to have the house vote on the extensions of the insurance premiums so is all good, legal and constitutional. . . I guess. right? he,he.

oh, i forgot to mention the best part: people who have lost their insurance already can't get it back. this whole thing has been planned out to wreck the economy.

reply to post by xuenchen

Obama's Insurance 'Fix' Is Unconstitutional ?

Perhaps. But, since when does even a US president have the authority of that guy in Venezuela to simply speak a command and have the private industry of the entire nation obey?

Understanding that the ACA is a contrived work of both government and corporate... there has to be connections that run between. Holy mother of V.I Lenin!