'What the hell is this, a joke?' | TheHill
March 26, 2014, 11:29 am
“What the hell is this, a joke?” Boehner said at his weekly press conference.
He was responding to the administration’s announcement on Tuesday evening that people who had begun the process of signing up for insurance through the federal exchanges would have until mid-April to do so, instead of March 31.
The Speaker called the move “another deadline made meaningless,” adding it to a litany of unilateral changes that the administration has made to the law.
“This is part of a long-term pattern of this administration manipulating the law for its own convenience,” Boehner said. “It’s not hard to understand why the American people question this administration’s commitment to the rule of law.”
The Speaker mocked the use of the “honor system” to determine who was eligible for an extension after the administration said it would make no effort to ensure that people had actually begun the process of signing up by March 31.
“The dates are the dates, and the law is the law,” he said. “The president doesn’t have the authority to change the law whenever he wants, which he continues to do.”
Boehner added later in the press conference: “The law says that enrollment stops at the end of March. That’s what the law says. I’ve got to live by the law; you’ve got to live by the law; the American people have got to live by the law. And guess what? The president needs to live by the law as well.”