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In the Wall Street Journal, former-Senator Phil Gramm and Michael Solon offer a gameplan for what the next President–a Republican–should do on the first day in office. In short, repeal many of the President’s executive orders,(with a majority in the Senate) appoint new cabinet secretaries who can rescind all of President Obama’s policy memoranda, and declare an economic emergency to halt to all pending rule-making and initiate new ones.

In particular, they offer these steps of what can be done with respect to the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act also grants substantial flexibility in its implementation, a feature Mr. Obama has repeatedly exploited. The new president could suspend penalties for individuals and employers, enforce income-verification requirements, ease the premium shock on young enrollees by adjusting the community rating system, allow different pricing structures inside the exchanges and alter provider compensation. These actions could begin dismantling the most pernicious parts of ObamaCare and prevent its roots from deepening as Congress debates its repeal and replacement.

One of the most perverse aspects of President Obama’s repeated delays and waivers of the Affordable Care Act–ostensibly designed to save the law–is that the exact same actions can be used by another President for the exact opposite effect–to kill it. All of the defenders of the President’s actions will be left in a very awkward position. In my interviews for Unraveled, I spoke with a number of people who advised the Romney Campaign, and this was something they looked into extensively–how the ACA’s harshest mandates could be softened. But of course, this was all before the Fall of 2013 when the President began his policy of “regulation by blog post.”

My suggestion–not that anyone will listen–is to enforce the entire law.  The quickest way to get rid of Obamacare is to get rid of all of the illegal waivers, extensions, and transitional relief.The President on day one could sign an executive order announcing that every aspect of the Affordable Care Act will be enforced, without any waivers starting January 1, 2018, unless a bill is passed to repeal and replace the law before then. The Democrats and the insurance companies would rush to the table, and the law would be scuttled in a manner of months. A President would require a lot of fortitude to make this move, but it would be decisive. This will likely be the theme of the final chapter of Unraveled.

The Hill has a fascinating piece on the history of how Congressional Democrats prevailed over the President, and got him to sign a two-year delay (really a repeal) of the Cadillac Tax.

As recently as three weeks ago, one of President Obama’s top advisers warned Democratic leaders to leave the “Cadillac tax” alone.

Asked on Dec. 1 whether Obama would veto any measure that chipped away at the unpopular tax on healthcare benefits, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough was stern.

“Yes, it is true,” McDonough replied at a private luncheon that was attended by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

Democrats were undeterred.

Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Harry Reid (D-Nev.), forged ahead with secret budget talks with GOP leaders in which they sought to delay or even repeal the tax before it took effect in 2018.

And two days after the luncheon, the Senate took a symbolic vote to repeal the ObamaCare tax by an overwhelming 90-10 margin.

The Senate’s vote marked a turning point in the Obama administration’s losing fight to preserve the tax, according to interviews with a half-dozen people familiar with the talks.

“I think that’s when the administration reluctantly began to see the light,” said Harold Schaitberger, head of the International Fire Fighters Association, who had asked the question of McDonough in the Dec. 1 meeting. …

“The [White House] understood where the two of them were coming from, and that’s why you saw their position soften over time,” a senior Democratic aide said Friday.

“They knew they weren’t going to get an extenders package without it,” the aide added, referring to the tax bill included in the package.

Throughout the fall, the White House–apparently tone deaf–didn’t even read its own caucus correctly about how strong the opposition was:

In early December, as talks inched forward on Capitol Hill, Pelosi and Reid heard new ideas from the administration about how to lessen the financial blow of the Cadillac tax.

The White House floated several tweaks, such as accommodations for people in regions where healthcare is more expensive. Most of them were not taken seriously.

“It was too little, too late. Frankly that was a conversation we should have been having when we had that meeting in April,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), one of the loudest Democratic voices against the Cadillac tax.

Courtney had taken part in an April meeting with Pelosi as well as several administration officials about two months after reintroducing a bill to repeal the tax. At the time, he already had nearly 100 co-sponsors. A GOP version of the bill from Rep. Frank Guinta (N.H.) was also gaining traction.

“Frankly, I don’t think people took seriously the level of opposition we had [to the tax] at that point,” he added.

Months later, in September, Reid and Pelosi held a private meeting with Obama to again reiterate the growing problem of the Cadillac tax. They told the president they would be seeking changes as part of the year-end budget negotiations that were just getting off the ground.

They repeatedly heard the same message: No.

Let this story be known by all that there is really no interest in keeping the Affordable Care Act afloat. This delay was a kickback to unions that made the ACA even more unstable. The labor unions only supported the ACA with the cadillac tax, knowing that it would be conveniently repealed when the time came:

“Getting that through within the White House itself was a major area of conflict,” said Dr. Zeke Emanuel, an Obama administration health policy adviser at the time.

“The conflict wasn’t within the Republican Party, it was inside the White House. People were saying, ‘Should we just scrap it because it’s going to elicit some much union antagonizing?’ ”

The AFT withheld their endorsement of Hillary Clinton until she supported a repeal:

Several union groups, including the American Federation of Teachers, put the Cadillac tax in candidate questionnaires that determine presidential endorsements. Hillary Clinton only won the teacher group’s endorsement after announcing her support for repealing the tax.

And in a meeting last week, Schaitberger, the head of the firefighter union, warned Reid that failure to resolve the Cadillac tax issue could hurt Democrats in the polls.

“I told him … ‘You’re going to have workers, members, citizens, willing to take their wrath out in the political arena,’” Schaitberger said.

When the President insists that this is the Law of the Land, what he really means is that only modifications that advance liberal special interests will be allowed.

After the final omnibus package was revealed Wednesday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest downplayed any negative effect of the two-year freeze on the Cadillac tax.

“If I had a nickel for every time that somebody inside the Beltway suggested that the Affordable Care Act was at grave risk, I’d probably be able to buy an actual Cadillac myself,” he quipped.

The day before, Earnest had pledged “steadfast” support for keeping the tax in place.

Alas, there is blame for Republicans too. They caved on the Cadillac Tax in order to repeal the 2.3% medical device tax. This is also a special interest kickback to medial device manufacturers, a booming sector of the economy. This is no way relieves the suffering that the ACA has inflicted on millions of Americans.

In the nearly yearlong effort to roll back the Cadillac tax, the other major obstacle for Democratic leaders was the GOP.

Republicans were reluctant to give their opponents any win on ObamaCare, according to sources familiar with the talks.

Throughout negotiations, GOP leaders insisted that they would not advocate for any changes to the Cadillac tax, giving themselves a bigger bargaining chip for the budget and tax talks to come.

But the 90-10 vote in the Senate gave Democrats critical leverage: Pelosi and Reid now had proof that delaying the tax had support in both parties, forcing Republican leaders to change their game plan.

Republican leaders, however, made clear they would not accept changes to the Cadillac tax without changes to the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices.

I think this chapter of my book is just about done now.

Defense Distributed v. Department of State is on appeal to the 5th Circuit. This appeal challenges the State Department’s application of arms control regulations to files related to 3D-Printed Guns. I am counsel on this case, along with Alan Gura, Matt Goldstein, and Bill Mateja.

We filed our Appellant Brief last week. Here is the summary of our argument:

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but it is not a sword. Nor are blueprints, computer files, and other forms of expression about guns the “functional equivalent” of guns. Nor should public speech including unclassified “technical data” be the stuff of national security controls merely because it might theoretically relate to military articles.

And when Americans speak in public forums about unclassified information that they have created, they are not “exporting” it overseas just because a foreigner might overhear their conversation.

This is not merely Plaintiffs’ position. For years, it was the position of the Department of Justice, which repeatedly warned that the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”) could not be used as a prior restraint against speech in public forums. Indeed, the State Department has adopted Plaintiffs’ position in litigating ITAR’s limits before federal courts.

But Defendant State Department officials now veer far from the recognized path. Ignoring DOJ advice, these officials singled out one speaker among many on the novel theory that its speech falls within ITAR’s boundless definition of “technical data” and thus cannot be “exported”—that is, expressed in any manner potentially accessible to foreigners—without prior approval. And the Government’s speech- licensing regime is expensive, slow, indeterminate, and bereft of judicial review.

We have thus reached the point where Americans cannot speak about “technical data,” whatever that is, without ensuring that the theater, auditorium, trade show floor, television audience or street corner is free of “foreign persons.” And because the Internet is available worldwide, Americans risk severe penalties when exchanging a broad array of information online, including the most basic information pertaining to Second Amendment-protected arms.

Congress never sanctioned this state of affairs, which is intolerable under established First, Second, and Fifth Amendment precedent. The District Court’s denial of a preliminary injunction against this prior restraint should be reversed.

In addition, we received amicus briefs from the following groups:

• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Thomas Jefferson Center – This brief shows that “The absence of judicial review exacerbates the ITAR‘s overbroad sweep by obscuring the distinction between “permissible” journalism and prohibited speech .”
• Cato Institute – Cato’s brief explains why “protected speech does not lose First Amendment protection simply because it could be used to unlawful ends.”
• Rep. Thomas Massie and 14 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives – This brief shows that “Congress did not delegate the power to ban the publication of lawful speech when it passed the Arms Export Control Act to regulate exports and imports of arms.” Additionally, even if ti did, “then it would exceed Congress’s limited and enumerated powers.”
• Electronic Frontier Foundation – This brief analyzes why “ITAR’s prepublication review of technical data is an unlawful prior restraint on speech.”
• Madison Society Foundation – This brief discusses that “The Framers understood gunsmithing to be a personal activity by which each man could make his own gun.”
• Texas Public Policy Foundation – The brief concludes that “issuing the temporary injunction will not harm the public interest.”

Fox News wrote an article about the congressional brief, “Lawmakers lay down courtroom cover for 3-D-printed gun inventor.”

Some 15 lawmakers are providing legal cover for the creator of a 3-D-printed gun, saying the State Department went too far two years ago when it forced him to take down online blueprints for the do-it-yourself weapon.

The members of Congress, led by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kent., signed onto an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Texas inventor Cody Wilson is fighting a lower court ruling in favor of the government agency. The State Department in 2013, citing a law allowing it to regulate international arms trafficking, blocked Wilson and his nonprofit group Defense Distributed from posting technical data for 3-D printing of legal handguns.

Ilya Shapiro wrote a post about Cato’s brief, titled “Government Can’t Censor Digital Expression Just Because Someone Somewhere Might Use It for Unlawful Purposes.”

When Defense Distributed, ably represented by Alan Gura and Josh Blackman, challenged this restriction of its right to disseminate information to Americans—which the State Department’s own guidance says is protected by the First Amendment—the federal district court ruled for the government. Cato has now filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, urging it to defend the First Amendment right of Americans to share open-source technical information.

Defense Distributed is not in the business of distributing arms. What it distributes, as properly recognized by the district court, is computer code in the form of CAD and other files. Code and digital files are speech for purposes of the First Amendment, as several federal appellate courts have recognized. Most importantly, simply because speech may be used for unlawful purposes by third parties doesn’t mean it loses constitutional protection.

You can see all of the filings here.

During the third democratic debate, Secretary Hillary Clinton said she would “fix some of the glitches” in the Affordable Care Act. Here is the entire exchange:

RADDATZ: And we’re going to move on to health care.

Secretary Clinton, the Department of Health and Human Services says more than 17 million Americans who are not insured now have health coverage because of Obamacare. But for Americans who already had health insurance the cost has gone up 27 percent in the last five years while deductibles are up 67 percent, health care costs are rising faster than many Americans can manage.

What’s broken in Obamacare that needs to be fixed right now? And what would you do to fix it?

CLINTON: Well, I would certainly build on the successes of the Affordable Care Act and work to fix some of the glitches that you just referenced.

Number one, we do have more people who have access to health care. We have ended the terrible situation that people with pre- existing conditions were faced with where they couldn’t find at any affordable price health care.

Women are not charged more than men any longer for our health insurance. And we keep young people on our policies until they turn 26.

(APPLAUSE)

Those are all really positive developments. But out-of-pocket costs have gone up too much and prescription drug costs have gone through the roof. And so what I have proposed, number one, is a $5,000 tax credit to help people who have very large out-of-pocket costs be able to afford those.

Number two, I want Medicare to be able to negotiate for lower drug prices just like they negotiate with other countries’ health systems.

(APPLAUSE)

We end up paying the highest prices in the world. And I want us to be absolutely clear about making sure the insurance companies in the private employer policy arena as well as in the Affordable Care exchanges are properly regulated so that we are not being gamed.

And I think that’s an important point to make because I’m going through and analyzing the points you were making, Martha. We don’t have enough competition and we don’t have enough oversight of what the insurance companies are charging everybody right now.

(CROSSTALK)

RADDATZ: But you did say those were glitches.

CLINTON: Yes.

RADDATZ: Just glitches?

CLINTON: Well, they’re glitches because…

RADDATZ: Twenty-seven percent in the last five years, deductibles up 67 percent?

CLINTON: It is. Because part of this is the startup challenges that this system is facing. We have fought, as Democrats, for decades to get a health care plan. I know. I’ve got the scars to show from the effort back in the early ’90s.

We want to build on it and fix it. And I’m confident we can do that. And it will have effects in the private market. And one of the reasons in some states why the percentage cost has gone up so much is because governors there would not extend Medicaid.

And so people are still going to get health care, thankfully, in emergency rooms, in hospitals. Those costs are then added to the overall cost, which does increase the insurance premiums for people in the private system.

There was no discussion of the Supreme Court.

With the Cadillac Tax dead, Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton now seems to be setting her sights on another unpopular aspect of the law, the Employer Mandate. Recall that in 2013, conservatives argued that the employer mandate was shifting full-time workers into part-time employment, as companies attempted to avoid the penalty. At the time, the Politifacts of the world charged that these claims were half true or untrue, and were unsubstantiated claims against Obamacare.

Fast-forward two years, and Hillary Clinton has now joined the fray.

At a town hall meeting in Iowa City, Iowa Hillary Clinton was asked by a supporter about companies moving to a mostly part-time workforce and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Clinton said that companies are going to a mostly part-time workforce because of restrictions in Obamacare.

“Well that’s why they’re going to part-time. That and the Affordable Care Act. You know, we’ve got to change that because we have built in some unfortunate incentives that discourage full-time employment,” Clinton said. …

At the town hall, Clinton said that employers feel that, if an employee does not work 40 hours a week, they are not entitled to the benefits that a full-time employee receives.

“There is a disincentive in our system that we need to deal with, and I really worry about it because there is a trend to try and move more and more people into part-time work,” Clinton said. “And sometimes you want to work part-time, it fits into your family, it fits into your life obligations, but sometimes you want to work full-time but you can’t get a full-time job. So I want to look at all the employment rules.”