Mitch McConnell: Political games prompt delays

• As long as Obamacare remains law%2C Americans will continue to face the threat of losing their plans.
• What makes this latest delay so troubling is the fact that it seems to have been prompted not by the heartbreaking stories of millions of Americans.
• Washington Democrats are setting a dangerous precedent.

Every week, it seems, we learn of some new way the administration and its congressional allies plan to put political imperatives ahead of the rule of law and the rights of ordinary citizens.

We've seen it with the IRS scandal, and we saw it yet again this week with another politically motivated Obamacare delay.

With this latest move, the president is basically now telling Americans: If you like your plan, some of you can keep it — but only until the next election.

It's essentially all smoke and mirrors, because as long as Obamacare remains law, Americans will continue to face the threat of losing their plans. It's simply how the law was written; there's no "glitch" to be ironed out.

And what makes this latest delay so troubling is the fact that it seems to have been prompted not by the heartbreaking stories of millions of Americans but by the private pleadings of a handful of endangered Washington Democrats.

Remember: Just a few short months ago, Washington Democrats declared that Obamacare was settled law — that virtually every comma was sacrosanct and should not be changed. To prove their determination, they voted in lockstep against even the most modest of reforms.

But that was then, when that kind of strategy seemed politically helpful … before millions of Americans faced Obamacare's higher premiums and deductibles … before they learned that the law's central promise — if you like your plan, you can keep it — would become 2013's Lie of the Year.

And so, the same people who said Obamacare shouldn't be changed before are now begging the president to do it unilaterally to solve their own immediate political problems.

Washington Democrats are setting a dangerous precedent. Do they think a Republican president should be able to only enforce the parts of the law he or she likes, if any at all?

If Washington Democrats are serious about actually helping Americans struggling under Obamacare, and not just concerned with keeping their seats, they should work with us to implement better health reform ideas. That's what Americans truly deserve — not more phony, and dangerous, political games.

Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is the Senate Republican Leader.