Peak Esposito (2)

In today’s New York Post Betsy McCaughey draws attention to a striking episode of the Obama administration’s rank lawlessness. As it has been frequently in the past, Obamacare is the occasion:

In 2014, the White House tried to avert that disaster by promising insurers a taxpayer-funded bailout, but public outrage and quick action by Sen. Marco Rubio put a stop to it. Now the administration is at it again.

Desperate to keep insurers on board, the administration scrambled to find another pot of money. Unfortunately, once again, a big part of that money pot belongs to the public.

President Obama doesn’t seem to care. On Feb. 12, the administration announced that the money will be handed out to insurers — a whopping $7.7 billion this year alone.

But it’s not just expensive: That huge handout to the insurance industry is also illegal.

This is money you and everyone else who already has insurance are forced to pay, called a reinsurance fee. You pay the fee whether you buy your own plan or get covered at work, even if your employer self-insures. You may be clueless about it, but the fee is buried in your premium or taken out of your compensation.

The text of the Affordable Care Act is clear as a bell on what this money can be used for.

Some of these annual fees — adding up to billions a year — belong to the public, not the insurance companies. The law states a fixed share “shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used” to offset insurance companies’ losses.

But the administration gave all of it to the insurance companies last year, and got away with that heist. So now they’re trying it again.

In her conclusion McCaughey takes a useful look back at the origin of the Esposito phase of the Obama presidency:

ObamaCare was sold on lies: You can keep your health plan if you like it. And keep your doctor if you like your doctor. Then, once it was passed, the administration resorted to a long string of lawless executive actions to keep an unworkable scheme going, despite the damage being done to employers, doctors and consumers.

The administration’s diversion of public funds to its insurance-company cronies is just the latest defiance of the law.

The president has illegally delayed the employer mandate repeatedly. He’s handing out free ObamaCare plans to illegal immigrants. Statutory deadlines are routinely ignored, and funds are slyly shifted from one program to another — the law be damned.

Ultimately, ObamaCare is imperiling not only our health and our nation’s economic growth, but even our nation’s most precious asset — the rule of law.

Whole thing here.

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