White House: we can't enforce Obamacare's income eligibility requirements and never mind that the IRS is in charge

The rolling train wreck you may know as Obamacare suffered two spasmodic shocks this week as Yuval Levin explains.

When the Obama administration announced last Tuesday that they would be delaying Obamacare’s employer mandate and its associated reporting requirements by a year, many observers... noted that this could create problems for verifying eligibility for subsidies in the Obamacare exchanges.

[...California and many other] states clearly shared this worry about how they were supposed to confirm eligibility for subsidies. But on Friday, the Obama administration answered their question with what is becoming the familiar refrain of Obamacare implementation: “never mind.” Buried in a massive 600-page rule released without fanfare the day after July 4, the administration announced that it would effectively delay the requirement to verify eligibility in the state exchanges...

The delay of the individual mandate announced on Tuesday and the delay of the verification requirements for eligibility announced on Friday both suggest the same two kinds of problems: logistical difficulties with getting complex systems into place, and the fear of ending up with too few people in the exchanges.

...If not enough people sign up for the exchanges, the system could end up with an insufficient and unsustainable insurance pool—too few healthy people to balance the sick ones and fund the cost of their care... This concern is very high on the agenda of those implementing the law. It is why they are investing in a huge PR effort to drive enrollment. It is surely part of the reason for delaying the employer mandate—allowing some large employers to dump their workers into the exchanges without a penalty. And it seems very likely also to be a key factor behind the decision to allow people access to the exchange subsidies without proving they actually qualify for them.

Opening the door wide open to fraud could well increase the number of people in the exchanges, but it will also make that number far less meaningful—casting a shadow over whatever is achieved by the enrollment effort set to launch in the fall. It will also, needless to say, increase the cost of the exchange subsidies. The administration is clearly worried enough about enrollment to take that risk and bear that cost. It seems to be operating under the assumption that the way to secure Obamacare’s future is to get as many people as possible into the system and receiving subsidies...

So in short, ObamaCare is impossible to implement, its costs are spiraling out of control and now it turns out there will be no effort whatsoever to fight fraud. And the income eligibility requirements of Obamacare will be too difficult to verify, even though the IRS is supposed to be the law's enforcement arm.

But what I don't understand is how these problems didn't come to light during the months of hearings held on this legislation.

Isn't that the purpose of legislative hearings? To bring in experts who are familiar with the subject and will help explore all of the potential pitfalls of the proposed legislation? To debate the strengths and weaknesses of a proposed law so that the American people and their representatives could render an informed judgment before voting?

Oh, that's right. Forgot. The hearings never happened, because it was vitally important to pass the Obamacare monstrosity quickly before more people died or something. You see, we needed to pass the legislation in order to find out what was in it.


Hat tips: WarEagle1 and BadBlue News.