Embattled Democratic U.S. Senator Michael Bennet has spent years defending the farcically named Affordable Care Act, but at some point reality must come crashing down upon utopian social programs. Obamacare is not immune to this despite it being the centerpiece of Democratic political “achievement” of this decade.
It looks like Bennet is starting to realize this. In what we estimate is his first backpedal on this disastrous law, Bennet authored an opinion piece in the Steamboat Pilot that calls for Congress to dial back one of the punitive provisions in Obamacare that harm small businesses.
In a dangerous ruling, the IRS interpreted one of the clauses in the 20,000 pages of Obamacare regulation that small businesses could not reimburse employees for buying health insurance on the individual market. The penalty for employers offering this benefit is a small business budget busting $100 per day (or $36,500 per year). Recalling that Nancy Pelosi famously argued to “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” we can only assume that this was one of those hidden gems.
Make no mistake – we want to disarm this Obamacare landmine placed to harm our small business community and the millions they employ, but this needs to be part of a larger conversation about the end state of this law. With insurers pulling out of markets coast to coast and double digit annual premium increases to keep the remaining insurers in place, it is only a matter of time before this bureaucracy collapses under its own weight.
Bennet has been Obamacare’s biggest cheerleader in Colorado. After all, Bennet claimed that he was willing to “lose his job” to support Obamacare. Perhaps we should take him up on his offer.