Tuesday, July 22, 2014

ObamaCare's Shrinking Geography

IBD reports:
Probably hoping no one would notice, regulators late last week exempted from ObamaCare five U.S. territories where it was failing. Will they do the same once it's obvious ObamaCare is failing everywhere else?

When the geniuses in Congress and the White House were writing the ObamaCare legislation, they made a slight mistake. The law imposed ObamaCare's guaranteed issue and community rating insurance mandates on the five territories — which have a combined population of more than 4 million — but it exempted them from the individual mandate and didn't offer any subsidies.

Not surprisingly, the insurance markets quickly collapsed in Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, just like health officials there said would happen.

Until last week, the administration claimed there was nothing it could do. A year ago, in fact, they told the territories that, while the law might have been badly written, it's the law. The HHS "does not have the authority" to fix the problem.


Will a future Presidents "broaden" the "exemptions" of ObamaCare?