Now we know why delaying the employer mandate by a year – a move completely unauthorized by the text of ObamaCare – was deemed so essential by the president and his advisors. There would have been riots.

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Dishonesty was required to pass ObamaCare. Stupidity might be enough to elect the Congress that repeals it.

By now, many Americans are all-too-familiar with Obama’s 29 videotaped assertions to Americans that, “If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan.”

Obama’s message was unmistakably clear: When implemented, ObamaCare will leave the choice of which insurance to buy completely up to the consumer.

In other words, ObamaCare is being created to benefit other people, but it won’t impact you. Millions of voters took the President of the United States at his word, which is exactly what Obama wanted and needed.

Recorded remarks stretching from 2009 through all of October 2013 show Obama making his promise at a variety of venues in order to garner support for his landmark takeover of health care.

On some occasions, he tried to sound even more emphatic: “Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”

Now the president is singing a different tune.

In a speech to some of his core supporters in Organizing for Action, Obama revised his statement. “What we said was you could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed.” (Emphasis added)

Though none of Obama’s previous statements ever mentioned such an exception, he was right in at least one sense. Key players in his administration knew that the qualifier existed, and said so in official government documents. The president just never bothered to mention it.

As recently reported by NBC News, the first official acknowledgment that ObamaCare would cause people to lose their healthcare plans was buried in a June 2010 edition of the Federal Register.

In the announcement, the Obama administration ruled that only health insurance plans that were purchased before the law’s March 23, 2010 passage would qualify to be “grandfathered” into the post-ObamaCare world.

But eligibility for grandfathered status would be lost if any number of normal changes occurred to the plan at any time after the cut-off date, such as minor tweaks to coverage details as well as changes to co-pay and deductible limits. That regulatory qualification is the reason so many people are getting cancellation notices. 

Since insurance plan components and their prices fluctuate – as products and prices do in any market – the Obama administration estimated that between “40 to 67” percent of plans bought on the individual market would lose their grandfathered status by the end of 2013.

In addition, the administration estimated that 45 percent of large employer plans and 66 percent of small employer plans would also lose their status and be terminated by the end of this year.

As health expert Avik Roy points out, the government’s 2010 estimates translate into “51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group [individual] market” experiencing cancellations, or “93 million Americans.”

It’s worth pausing for a moment to emphasize a point Roy does not. His 93 million figure is based on Congressional Budget Office numbers estimating 156 million Americans (half of the nation’s population) enrolled in employer-based insurance. 51 percent of those equates to about 79.5 million. That leaves 13.5 million cancellations in the individual insurance market.

The point is this: Had the Obama administration not unilaterally decided to delay the employer mandate, nearly half of the people covered by employer-based insurance – a quarter of the nation’s population – would have been receiving the same kinds of cancellation notices arriving in the mailboxes of people who buy their insurance individually.

Imagine the outcry right now if nearly eight times as many people were having their insurance canceled and replaced with more expensive plans.

Now we know why delaying the employer mandate by a year – a move completely unauthorized by the text of ObamaCare – was deemed so essential by the president and his advisors. There would have been riots.

As it is, the employer delay is set to expire this time next year, meaning that tens of millions more Americans will be getting cancellation notices the month before the 2014 mid-term elections.

That’s not a stroke of genius. It’s the mistake that could bring down ObamaCare.