By loosening requirements of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration is showing its unwillingness to abide by the rules of its own law,
according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.
Taxpayers may be on the hook for an extra $250 billion over the next 10 years as a result, Journal editors say.
"The White House seems to regard laws as mere suggestions, including the laws it helped to write," the editorial states.
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"On the heels of last week's one-year suspension of the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate to offer insurance to workers, the administration is now waiving a new batch of its own Obamacare prescriptions."
According to the Journal, the administration no longer plans to verify individual eligibility for insurance subsidies and instead will rely on self-reporting of income because the Department of Human Services contends it's 'not feasible' to develop the necessary systems before enrollment begins in October.
"Remember 'liar loans,' the low- or no-documentation mortgages that took borrowers at their word without checking pay stubs or W-2s? Obamacare is now on the same honor system, with taxpayers in tow," the Journal says.
"It's true that coordinating and managing vast amounts of information from hundreds of millions of Americans and corporations, and monitoring compliance with more than 10,000 pages of fine-print Federal Register regulations so far, is hard to do," the editorial continues.
"Yet that is the system Democrats installed when they passed the law, which is not supposed to be optional due to administrative incompetence."
The editorial noted that fraud could lead to millions of ineligible people receiving subsidies, which in turn could add up to billions in excess spending.
Assuming 21 percent to 25 percent of those receiving subsidies aren't eligible, as is the case with the Earned Income Tax Credit, "Obamacare would amount to as much as $250 billion in improper payments in its first decade," the Journal says.
"Liberals are also now claiming that the employer mandate and these eligibility rules were never important parts of Obamacare. This is revisionist history, not least because the mandate and eligibility limits helped reduce the cost as measured by the Congressional Budget Office."
The loosened requirements fit neatly with the whole convoluted process of implementing Obamacare, the editorial concluded, adding that Democrats are "discovering how difficult it is to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy."
Editor's Note: Should ObamaCare Be Repealed? Vote in Urgent National Poll