I’m not sure that this is the best forum for this question, but that’s pretty much it. Last week, Obama said that large employers will not have to comply until 2015 (instead of 2014). Where in the law does it say that he can do that? I’m not debating whether or not this delay is a good idea. I’m just trying to understand what gives him the authority to do this.
No where, as far as I can tell. Maybe the Constitution might have something on this though.
I don’t think the Constitution says anything about when laws get implemented. You can check - it’s not all that long.
The PPACA appears to reference ‘regulations’ from the Department of Labor as the authorative source, and it appears that the DOL has postponed the date.
I don’t understand the details.
Such a brilliant comeback.
Faithfully execute the law.
Leo Bloom, I think you are reading something into my comment that isn’t there. This is GQ, answers are supposed to be politically neutral and not attempts to cause debates, which would force a thread to move to GD.
If you’re interested in the specific portion of the ACA involved, you can read it (section 1513 of Title I) in this PDF.
I’m not going to quote the whole thing, but to illustrate:
The act doesn’t say what happens if the Secretary of Labor hasn’t determined the rules and guidelines by Dec. 31, 2013.
wevets, I appreciate your civility in your response and more pointed cite. /not sarcasm
See, if you had this new tech my post would have been shorter:
Authorities ‘use analytics tool that recognises sarcasm’
3 July 2013 Last updated at 09:20 ET
By Zoe Kleinman
Technology reporter, BBC News
French company Spotter has developed an analytics tool that claims to be able to identify sarcastic comments posted online.
Spotter says its clients include the Home Office, EU Commission and Dubai Courts. [snip]
Just a guess, but I suspect the law goes into effect as scheduled. There has just been a sort of promise to not go after anyone for not complying until a year later. In other words, they are just delaying enforcement.
I think the basic answer is “because he can get away with it”. Nobody is going to push him - Republicans don’t like Obamacare, and Democrats don’t want to do something that would embarrass him (and their party). And Obamacare is not very popular IRL, unlike here on the SDMB. So there is nobody to push Obama to actually do what he said he would.
Regards,
Shodan
Normally we’d look to the courts to force the executive branch to do (or not do) something. The courts require that someone actually be injured by the action before they can bring a suit, though.
In this case, that’s a complication. The law provides that businesses must either provide insurance or pay a penalty. If the government isn’t enforcing the penalty, then who sues and on what grounds? The workers can’t claim to have been injured because the law never required the employer to provide them with coverage.
I cited the relevant sections for the delay in the employer mandate in the GD thread. Here they are again:
Section 4980H of the ACA states:
The reporting requirements are in Sections 6055 and 6056. 6056 states
So the Secretary gets to set the assessment and reporting requirements.
I could really use that! 
ETA: Re: Jas09 thanks for posting the quotes. I thought it was the employer mandate section everyone was talking about - hadn’t seen the GD thread.
Can the President or Secretary postpone it to the year 3400?
What’s the limit?
Well, the practical limit would be until (a) someone had standing to sue or (b) the public voted the administration out of office.
But as pointed out its pretty hard to claim your being damaged by NOT being taxed and NOT having to report insurance information to the IRS. So that one is out. Which leaves the public’s opinion about how the executive branch is executing the law. Fortunately we have relatively frequent opportunity to remedy any perceived deficiencies in that area.
I’m sure they have at least an excuse and can show they haven’t broken the law, but it’s one thing to tweak the law while implementing it and nother to, basically, render it null by delaying it forever.
Perhaps so. That would be a political question.
And you are welcome to support whichever candidate you think will more forcefully and effectively execute the PPACA in the 2016 Presidential election (or support Congressional candidates in 2014 that will attempt impeachment if you feel that strongly about it).
I think the reason for this is simple. The law was huge and complex, and passed in a hurry. The debate was more about the overall law, so the opposition that should have been picking apart the details instead was focussed on the general concept. A lot of flaws and loopholes were missed - i.e. how do you define “full-time” or equivalent without allowing large employers to escape the mandate with tricks? What if you get a raise halfway through the year, and at the end of the year find yourself ineligible for the subsidy you qualified for at the beginning? Employers can escape the penalties for expensive plans by making the personal plan cheap and the family coverage sky-high. That can’t be what was intended.
Normally, in a law this complex, there would be one clarification after another passed to correct issues arising. However, the Republicans refuse to pass any changes except “abolish”, so the minor flaws are not being corrected.
I would imagine a court would have a hard time convicting anyone for missing a tax when they can show the government agency itself told them “this tax is not applicable”. Coming back later and saying “you should not have listened to the tax department’s advice” would not get much traction - seems akin to entrapment to me. Ditto any prosecution of the tax department - “we were only floowing orders.”
As mentioned, I’m sure Obama and his cabinet have justifications for what they have done. If you can suspend tax deadlines, etc. and other such gvernment rules when a hurricane hits, I’m sure you can justify postponing a rule due to the chaos it might cause.
the problem is that when one or both sides are not willing to compromise, then democracy fails. Just ask (ex)president Morsy.
(A more cynical interpretatin is that the flaws were obvious but the Republicans let them through anticipating the chance to capitalize on the chaos to come)
I have no bone in the discussion because I don’t live in the US. I’m simply trying to get through the legal aspects of Obama’s decisión.
Agreed on the courts.
The thing is that, as has been said, nobody is going to oppose the deal, for political reasons.
I wonder what Obama will do in 12 months or if a future Republican administration can overutrn PPACA simply by issuing a “turn a blind eye” rule.