Once again, the Obama administration is rewriting Obamacare on the fly, in response to political convenience. Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post reports:

The Obama administration has decided to give extra time to Americans who say that they are unable to enroll in health-care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline.

Federal officials confirmed Tuesday evening that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension.

Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an extension by checking a blue box on HealthCare.gov to indicate that they tried to enroll before the deadline. This method will rely on an honor system; the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.

As the Post notes, “White House officials have repeatedly said that the March 31 deadline was firm,” so once again we have been lied to about Obamacare.

The administration is claiming that the reason for this is:

…an attempt to prepare for a possible surge of people trying to sign up in the final days before the deadline. Such a flood could leave some people unable to get through the system.

“We are . . . making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment — either online or over the phone,” said Julie Bataille, director of the office of communications for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency overseeing the federal health-care exchange.

But we have been told by President Obama himself that the website is working fine. So somebody is lying. Heck, everybody is lying - this is the Obama administration.

The real reason for the extension is that Congressional Democrats, especially vulnerable Senators facing re-election, are loath to have voters start getting hit with fines for an unpopular law.

The rule of law (remember when House Republicans seeking to legislatively alter Obamacare were attacked for trying to change “settled law” and likened to terrorists for doing so?) has been replaced by the rule of political expediency. Glenn Reynolds wrily remarks:

Remember when they told us that any delay would kill sick people, you MURDERER!!!!???