#ObamaCare Delay Won't Solve Anything

At IBD, "Delaying ObamaCare's Employer Mandate Solves Nothing":

The reason the administration delayed the Obama-Care employer mandate was because it was turning into a monumental catastrophe. Among the problems:

• Businesses that were supposed to benefit the most from it were instead cutting workers, trimming employees' hours and doing whatever else they could to minimize the mandate's costs. The administration made this problem worse by decreeing that 30 hours constituted full-time work.

• Insurance companies started to announce their ObamaCare premiums for small businesses, and many were coming in with big double-digit increases.

• In June, Obama announced the delay of a key feature of the small business insurance exchanges — called SHOP — that promised choice and competition. Instead of letting workers pick their own plans, as originally promised, owners would have to choose a single plan for their entire workforce.

• Some of the biggest insurers were avoiding the SHOP exchanges altogether. In several states, only one planned to offer a policy, and in Mississippi, none signed up.

• Democrats were starting to rebel against the mandate. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the administration's inability to get the SHOP exchanges fully operational would end up "crippling 29 million small businesses." Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., was pushing a bill to define "full time" as 40 hours a week, saying that without it ObamaCare would "be a negative for our families."

But while the delay might look like a political bonus to Democrats running in 2014, it will likely cause as many political problems as it solves.

Most of the concerns facing businesses will still be there next summer — right before the mid-term elections — when owners will again confront the costly mandate. In fact, the problems will likely be worse, since ObamaCare will have had a full year to wreak havoc on the health care system.

Plus, since the employer mandate was meant to keep businesses from dumping workers into the Obama-Care exchanges, delaying it could encourage them to do just that, which won't endear workers to the law.

And by delaying a key piece of his signature law, Obama has given Republicans ammunition to argue ObamaCare is a fatally flawed, economically ruinous "reform" even Democrats are finding hard to support.

What's more, the individual mandate — which is still set to go into effect as scheduled — is just as disastrous as the employer mandate.

IBD argues that the law should be fully repealed and replaced with market-based reforms. And it will be. After that, the Obama legacy will be one of complete failure on the single most important policy that it passed during the entire two-terms of Hussein's presidency. He's been a terrible president and the bills --- economic and political --- will be coming due for a long time to come.

RTWT at that top link.