General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Re: ACA. Now what? [View all]Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)There are wide ranges of how any law can be implemented enforced, based on who is making those decisions.
Look at a simple law like a speed limit. It's the law. But a police department and individual officers have wide discretion on how they enforce it.
They can put up signs then never run radar or write tickets because they choose to put effort into other enforcement. Then some people follow the law and some don't. And just ticket people for excess speed after an accident.
They can do what most police departments do and enforce more serious violations like ignoring a few miles over and doing tickets or warnings as the degree of violation increases, like only giving tickets for 10 over.
Or they can have a constant presence of officers doing stops for every motorist even 1 mile over the speed limit and maxing them out with every ticket and fine they can.
Each of those methods can be considered "enforcing the law". And if you want to be a hardliner than the last version is the most true version of upholding the law.
Just like that, the way the ACA is written the executive branch has a HUGE amount of discretion on how the ACA is implemented and enforced, from choosing not to go after people who don't pay the tax penalty for not having coverage to minor rulings on what insurance companies must cover. They can be following the law and still mke decisions at every step that harm the system.
The precedent is long set that the executive to exercise discretion on a number of things. Heck, just look at DACA. Immigration law didn't change at all there, President Obama just used his power as the Chief Executive to direct that there would be no priority in enforcement against a certain class of undocumented immigrants. Trump can just the same direct that there is no priority for enforcing any parts of the ACA.