Obama to postpone onset of all diseases

{mosads}Actually I am kidding. I do not expect the president to delay the onset of diseases. I made up the part about White House sources. But I am not making up the part about delaying the limit of out-of-pocket expenses, which will impose huge hardships on many consumers and reap more huge profits for insurers.

While I have been modestly (to put it mildly) advocating a healthcare law that fell far short of what I have long supported, I repeat again that causing a shutdown over ObamaCare is a politically suicidal notion. I repeat, again, that the shutdown idea is in my opinion dead as a doornail, though this should give no comfort to the White House or Democrats. 

On the other hand, there is no excuse for delaying the limit on out-of-pocket expenses. This is horrible healthcare policy and horrible politics for Democrats, and the president should reverse this decision. An income transfer from working-class consumers to the wealthiest insurers, which is what this delay will cause, is exactly what the economy does not need, with growth so slow and joblessness so high.

I do not support repealing the law, but I would support repealing that delay, which is the mother of all bad healthcare ideas.