White House OKs limited waiver on health penalty

[Igel]

9. The law, basically.

It allowed signup to a certain date.

But the law required that you be covered by the next calendar day or be penalized.

The regulations at first said, "We will ignore what's allowed in favor of complying with what's required. If we make the sign-up date earlier than the requirement, we can comply with the law's requirements."

Now the regulations are changed to say, "We will ignore what's required in favor of making sure what's allowed is still allowed. If we ignore one requirement and go with what's optional, we can avoid what will look unfair."

There's a lot of playing loose with legalities. As long as an administration knows that it won't be held accountable to the law it will act like the law is subject to it and not the other way around. It's thinking that goes back before Watergate. It's only reprehensible when there's political gain in judging it to be reprehensible.