Christmas Eve? What a Perfect Time for a Vaguely Worded Obamacare Deadline Delay!

Here’s how the Obama administration celebrated
Christmas Eve: by issuing a vague, kinda-sorta extension of
Obamacare’s deadline to enroll in private coverage by January 1.

Via The New York Times: 

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it would provide more
time for people to complete their applications for health insurance
if they could show that they missed the deadline because of
problems with the federal health care website.

And how, exactly, will that work? The New York Times
reports that…that is a good question: 

It was not clear on Tuesday how many people would be affected,
or how consumers would prove that website errors had prevented them
from signing up by the deadline on Tuesday night.

The announcement itself was vague, saying only that if website
problems had prevented any consumers from enrolling, they might
qualify for what the government has called “a special enrollment
period.” The administration did not say how long that would last.
Nor did it define what website errors might be involved.

So, that’s helpful.

Remember that this is not the first time the administration has
delayed the deadline to sign up for coverage that begins on the
first day of 2014. The original date was December 15, which was
extended to December 23, which was then extended,
semi-unofficially, to December 24. 

At this point, it’s all got to be pretty confusing for folks who
aren’t, say, spending Monday morning of Christmas week scanning for
the latest in unannounced changes to Obamacare’s sign-up deadlines,
or staying up late on Christmas Eve to find out what new, cloudy
exceptions the administration has in store for the next few
days.