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Another mandate for delay

So yet another Obama provision is delayed beyond yet another key election.

This time it’s the employer mandate. Back in July, the president unilaterally decided no one would enforce this requirement until 2015. On Monday, citing “broad authority,” the Obama administration delayed it for another year, at least for businesses with fewer than 100 workers.

Supposedly, this will give small businesses time to adjust. In reality, it’s designed to put off more bad ObamaCare news until after November. That’s because the pro-ObamaCare votes have come back to haunt vulnerable Democrats and put Sen. Harry Reid’s Democratic majority in peril.

We’re not so sure the delay will work as planned. For one thing, while it’s true some small employers will enjoy relief from the mandate until after the election, Americans realize ObamaCare is not a matter of computer glitches or a broken promise or two: The whole megillah simply will not work. Now that Americans have had a taste of the pain, putting off the full impact until after the election will only mean more anxiety about what will hit them next.

For another, it leaves Democrats exposed on the other prong of ObamaCare: the individual mandate. As House Speaker John Boehner put it, “Once again, the president is giving a break to corporations while individuals and families are still stuck under the mandates of his health-care law.”

At the beginning of this debacle, the president told us, “If you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Does anyone in the White House really believe the latest promise — that ObamaCare will be better after another delay — will be any more persuasive?