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President Obama has been claiming that a lot of his actions lately on Obamacare are allowed because the ACA grants him broad "transitional authority" to do certain actions necessary to make the transition to the new system as smooth as possible.
So does the ACA specifically grant him transitional authority? (if so what specific authority does it give him?)
No, nothing in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act grants the President transitional authority.
The argument that the administration is putting forth is that, because the ACA mandates incur an IRS penalty, they have the authority to delay the individual and business mandates (as well as other modifications to the ACA). They specifically cite 26 U.S.C. 7805(a):
(a) Authorization
Except where such authority is expressly given by this title to any person other than an officer or employee of the Treasury Department, the Secretary shall prescribe all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement of this title, including all rules and regulations as may be necessary by reason of any alteration of law in relation to internal revenue.
There is nothing specifically in the PPaACA that grants the President or the Executive Branch transitional authority.
The ACA does not grant him unilateral authority to alter the law, but it does give him authority to implement it as he sees fit. This does not mean you can change the law itself, like exempting certain individuals that were not exempted in the ACA as passed. This is called an executive overreach.
There is always "transitional authority" by virtue of the writing of regulations. The statute generally allows the president (via the secretary of HHS) to draft regulations which present the administration's interpretation of the statute that was enacted. Often, that authority is fairly broad.
The regulations under the ACA have been overly broad and the courts will have to sort this out if a future president doesn't fix the problem. The statute is generally the authoritative source, however, it is possible for courts to rely on the legislative history to discern the underlying intent of the statute.
Of greater concern is the administration's blatant disregard of the statue, for example, the recent decision to divert funds from other sources to reimburse insurance companies for their losses. This is an outright violation of the law as the law was specific on the subject of how the "risk corridor" provision was to be determined. The administration can't just change that (particularly, for political purposes, as has been done).
Unfortunately, on many of these items, they will be over and done with long before the courts act on them; so even though the president is breaking the law, nothing will be done about it.
The bigger problem is that the law is totally unconstitutional, because it raises billions in revenue for the general fund and the legislation didn't originate in the House, which the Constitution requires for good reason. The expectation is that the Court will not move against Congress on this, but that presumption may or may not be right. We could well see the ENTIRE law thrown out for this reason alone.
