Obamacare law states Obama can't unilaterally delay mandate, needs an act of Congress

Besides not being able to fix this disaster over the next 6 weeks with any kind of delay, as NBC reported last night...



...nor with the exorbitant amount of taxpayer funds that have been infused in this failure...

TheHill: A surge in government spending in the six months before the ObamaCare exchanges went live pushed federal spending to top government contractors over the $1 billion mark, a new study finds.

According to the report released Thursday by Bloomberg Government analyst Peter Gosselin, federal spending ramped up in the months leading up to Oct. 1, with $352 million of the $1 billion in federal contracts to the top 10 ObamaCare contractors awarded during this time.

...the Obamacare law states that the President can't unilaterally extend the timing of the mandate. That requires an act of Congress.

WashingtonExaminer: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., urged President Obama in a letter to consider extending the open enrollment period for Obamacare beyond March 31, 2014, given the IT problems confronting the program.

But that decision isn’t up to Obama.

Even if Obama wanted to extend the open enrollment period, he wouldn’t be allowed to without an act of Congress — at least if he wants to follow the law he signed.

Though the health care law granted the Secretary of Health and Human Services discretion to define dates for the open enrollment period to occur each year, it also specified that the initial enrollment period (i.e. the current one) had to be announced by July 1, 2012.

Specifically, Section 1311 of the healthcare law reads, “ENROLLMENT PERIODS: The Secretary shall require an Exchange to provide for– (A) an initial open enrollment, as determined by the Secretary (such determination to be made not later than July 1, 2012).”

However, this Imperial President has already unilaterally reassigned, redefined and rewritten the law humpteen times now (as did the SCOTUS in their decision to uphold its unconstitutionality), and as long as Congress lets him get away with such impeachable offenses, why would he stop now?

It's unfortunate that the GOP leadership couldn't strategically coalesce behind the Cruz/Lee effort to stop this debacle, and thus apply pressure on many of those Democratic voices up for reelection next year who are now calling for a delay. That could have avoiding the pain that millions of Americans are about to feel being caught between their current insurance dropped and a lack of affordable insurance provided as promised by an all-powerful government. What a mess.

H/t: WZ