Obama Set to Delay Another Health Care Mandate; Networks Ignore
President Obama will be enacting yet another delay for ObamaCare, but
the networks were silent about the prospect of it on Tuesday night. The
administration is set to allow insurers to keep offering health plans
that don't meet ObamaCare standards, and the delay will be tailored
around the November congressional elections.
The Hill clearly saw
the move as political – "easing election pressure on Democrats" – since
it would avoid the "firestorm" of many health plans being cancelled
right before the November elections. CBSNews.com reported the news, but none of the network evening news casts touched the story on Tuesday.
As CBSNews.com reported, Obama "enacted an administrative policy change
allowing insurers to extend existing plans on the individual and
small-group markets for a year. Now, the administration will extend that
policy again, CBS News confirms."
The administration already delayed the employer mandate for businesses
with 50 or more employees; now, for the second time, the mandate that
insurers offer plans compliant with the law's standards will be extended
at least another year.
Although the networks ignored the story Tuesday evening, Fox News picked up on it. Special Report host Brett Baier began, "We are preparing tonight for another major delay in the implementation of the President's health care law." Correspondent Jim Angle chipped in that Obama "prepares to offer yet another delay in ObamaCare, one to postpone the political pain of cancelling millions of plans in the individual market just like last fall."
— Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Matt Hadro on Twitter.
