And So the Obamacare Train Wreck Begins…

In postponing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate until after the 2014 mid‐​term elections, the Obama administration has tacitly admitted what critics of the law have long contended: that Obamacare is unworkable and would be a significant burden for American business and the economy at large. Stay tuned for further dominoes falling.


Actually, the Administration’s decision to postpone the employer mandate may make a bad situation worse. Because the individual mandate remains in place, workers may now face a situation where they must purchase their own insurance or pay a penalty because their employers don’t provide coverage. In effect, the administration’s decision shifts the cost from employers to workers. This hardly seems fair, and may force the administration to rethink the individual mandate as well.


We also know that implementation of federally run insurance exchanges is also facing challenges. A new report from the GAO has questioned whether the exchanges will really be operational by their October 1 deadline.


Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee and an author of the Affordable Care act, recently predicted that Obamacare’s implementation would be “a train wreck.” The administration’s latest action suggests that the wheels have already begun to come off the train.