Fait Accompli: Obama Makes the HHS Regulation Federal Law

Remember when you first noticed that Obama always promised exactly the opposite of what he actually delivered?

The following is reprinted from Pundit & Pundette. You need to know this, but watch your blood pressure:

It's from Nothing But Squid Ink, Ed Haislmaier and Jennifer A. Marshall's analysis of Obama's bogus "accommodation." I'm no lawyer, but the part about putting the mandate "into federal law" yesterday afternoon seems pretty clear:

Despite what President Obama said at his White House press conference, the actual regulations make permanent the “interim final regulations” issued August 3, 2011 — the ones that sparked the furor in the first place.

Prefaced by 17 pages of the kind of rhetorical squid ink that President Obama defensively deployed at his press conference, the words that have the force of law appear on pages 18 to 20. That’s where the actual amendments to the Code of Federal Regulations are made by three departments — Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services — that Congress previously granted joint oversight of employer health plans.

The bottom line is this: “Accordingly, the amendment to the interim final rule with comment period amending 45 CFR 147.130(a)(1)(iv) which was published in the Federal Register at 76 FR 46621-46626 on August 3, 2011, is adopted as a final rule without change.” [Emphasis added.]

Translation: The Obama administration Friday afternoon put into federal law the very regulation that drew objections from almost 200 Catholic bishops, some 50 religiously affiliated colleges and universities, 65 North American bishops of Orthodox churches, numerous other Jewish, Evangelical and Lutheran leaders, and even some liberals — and without changing so much as a comma.

From this point forward, any changes to this regulation have to go through the formal regulatory process all over again. [. . .]

Thus, instead of delaying final regulations until they could be revised to reflect the prospective changes President Obama outlined Friday, the administration went ahead and locked into regulation its original position, accompanied by a (non-binding) promise to revisit the issue.

Bold emphasis is mine.

Kinda makes Obama's protestations of "accommodation" look even more like a fraud and a lie than they already did. Pass it on.

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