The disastrous implementation of the Obamacare health insurance exchanges on October 1 has left the left health care law more vulnerable than ever. As I argue in a column at National Review Online, Republicans need to continue to push back against the most problematic and unpopular elements of the legislation to both protect Americans losing their insurance because of Obamacare, and to hasten the eventual repeal and replacement of the law with a better alternative.
The first order of business remains thinking through what to do about canceled individual-market policies. Prior to last week, it would have been unthinkable that the White House would unilaterally adopt a policy allowing millions of people to stay in their individual-insurance plans in 2014. After all, notwithstanding that famous presidential pledge, a major focus of Obamacare is the termination of the individual insurance market and the shifting of that market’s participants into the Obamacare exchanges in 2014. An escape route that allows large numbers of current individual-insurance enrollees to avoid the exchanges in 2014 (even one with its own set of traps) raises the very real possibility that the exchanges will falter before they ever get started.
This does not mean that the GOP should be applauding the White House’s supposed “fix.” For starters, the administration’s plan is completely lawless, as many others have noted. The president has not altered any regulations or asked Congress to provide a carve-out for the 2013 insurance plans. He instead announced he would not enforce the law for a year, which the administration claims should be enough for state regulators and the insurance industry to reopen the canceled plans.
Of course, this is not the way to run the government. In the near term, it’s not at all clear that states and insurers aren’t still exposed legally. What if an insurance enrollee sues an insurer for not providing an Obamacare-required benefit? Would that have standing in court? Who knows?
You can read the rest of the column here.