WH, NBC News Battle over Obamacare Delay Reports

On Wednesday evening, NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams opened his program by breaking the news that the Obama Administration was planning to move back the deadline for purchasing health insurance under the individual mandate by six weeks. Reporter Tom Costello said, “The White House tells NBC News it plans to move the deadline for individuals to be required to buy health insurance by as much as six weeks. As the law stands now, to avoid a tax penalty the uninsured need to start the process by February 15th. With this change the administration is trying to allow people to start the enrollment process by March 31st to avoid any financial penalty.”But the White House soon fired back by calling the NBC report inaccurate. White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest quickly tweeted:

NBC is wrong again. Individual mandate timing hasnt changed. Deadline for having insurance is March 31. Was true this am. Is true tonight.

— Josh Earnest (@jearnest44) October 23, 2013

Dan Pfeiffer, assistant to the President, then got into the act, tweeting:

There should be some sort of penalty for over and incorrect use of breaking news alerts by media organizations

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) October 23, 2013

.@SuzyKhimm NBC’s report on the news was innacurate. This has nothing to do with the website, its something that had to happen anyway

— Dan Pfeiffer (@pfeiffer44) October 23, 2013

Suzy Khimm of MSNBC then tweeted back:

NBC News *does* confirm the deadline for having insurance is delayed. It’s not a delay of the individual mandate.

— Suzy Khimm (@SuzyKhimm) October 23, 2013

So as of Wednesday evening, the story seems to be that Americans will still be penalized on March 31 if they do not have health insurance, but that they can now obtain insurance up to March 31 rather than February 15 to avoid penalty.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). Follow him on Twitter @BenShapiro.