The law of the land?

We’ve heard it too many times to count since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act one year ago: ObamaCare is the law of the land.

We heard it from defenders of big government every time the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to repeal this economic anchor: ObamaCare is the law of the land. We heard it from progressives every time businesses and doctors pointed out the crushing burdens and likely consequences of such a broad expansion of federal authority into health care: ObamaCare is the law of the land.

Is it? On Tuesday, the Obama administration acted unilaterally to delay a cornerstone of the health care overhaul, declaring that companies with at least 50 full-time workers would get a one-year reprieve from the law’s requirement that such businesses provide employees with health coverage or pay a penalty tax. The $2,000-per-worker fine will take effect Jan. 1, 2015, instead of six months from now.

For untold thousands of companies, the action brought exhales of relief. ObamaCare is so complicated, neither regulators nor private-sector experts can get their brains around it. Small businesses, especially, were about to be crushed by the implementation “train wreck,” to use the words of Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the law’s principal authors.

President Barack Obama can say this respite was motivated by concern for businesses, but the public knows better. If that were true, he never would have pushed for the law in the first place. The president was far more worried about how many Democrats would lose seats in next year’s midterm elections as a result of health care turmoil.

If anything, the decision has created more uncertainty for businesses while validating the public’s growing distrust of Washington. If the president can change the law of the land on a whim because of political considerations, what’s stopping him from doing it again?

Should companies really move forward with the assumption that ObamaCare penalties will be in force 18 months from now? Might the president, if lobbied hard enough, be persuaded to change other parts of the law as well? Can he make such adjustments to tax and immigration laws, too?

The president’s decision confirms what opponents have said all along: The law is unworkable and never will be. The law of the land is a disaster. Throw the whole thing out.