Obamacare regulations

You have not heard anything about this, but after a law is passed regulators interpret the law and print regulations. In other words, Congress passes a bill that’s signed into law but not surprisingly, few really understand how the law will work. The regulators get to work and at sometime in the future the regulations are finalized.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or the Obamacare law was signed into law in March of 2010. The actual law is ~2,500 pages of law and citations. Since then, the regulators have issued ~30,000 pages explaining what the law means. It increases every week. It will take years for the regulators to finish. That explains why few people, if any, really understand what the law means today.

As an example, Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), also known as cafeteria plans or Section 125 plans, were created by the Revenue Act of 1978 and signed into law by Jimmy Carter. The law established Flexible spending accounts, that allowed employees to receive reimbursement for medical expenses from untaxed income. Between 1980 and 2007, various proposed and temporary  regulations were issued.  In 2007, regulations became final, twenty-nine years after the law was passed!

So the Obamacare confusion will continue long after half of our population has passed away from natural causes. That’s what regulators do; it’s a recession proof business.