The Obama administration is coming under fire for once again making a unilateral change to ObamaCare -- this time, quietly exempting the five U.S. territories and their more than 4 million residents from virtually all major provisions of the health care law.
The decision was made a week ago, and was a long time coming. For months, the territories have been complaining that the law was implemented so poorly in their regions that it destabilized their insurance markets.
Until now, the Department of Health and Human Services claimed its hands were tied. But last Wednesday, the department reversed course.
The about-face has some questioning the department's authority to suddenly grant 4.1 million Americans an out from ObamaCare. It follows a cascade of prior unilateral actions delaying and nixing parts of the law for certain groups -- actions which in part prompted House Republicans to launch a lawsuit against President Obama challenging his use of executive power.
"The White House knows that ObamaCare is a train wreck," Republican National Committee spokesman Raffi Williams told FoxNews.com. "Excluding the territories from their train wreck of a law is just the latest example of delays and waivers the administration has issued to quietly limit the damage of the law without admitting that they have ruined the American health care system."
The decision covers residents in Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
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