Did Obama Delay the Individual Mandate for Two Years?

Short answer: I don't think he did.

The WSJ and others have claimed that President Obama has quietly, in a roundabout way, waived the individual mandate for two years.

I think they'r over-interpreting.

What the president did was extend for two years (think: election cycles) his existing, unilateral policy of deeming people whose insurance was cancelled in 2013 due to Obamacare to have experienced a “hardship” — and thus given them an effective exemption from the individual mandate penalty.

But under the hardship waiver policy promulgated by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), people have to apply for a waiver, provide documentation showing that they actually meet one of the criteria on HHS's list, and secure formal approval from HHS.

A number of commentators have pointed to the fact that the hardship waiver criteria list is long and open-ended (the last item says merely, “You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance. Please submit documentation if possible”); so yes, a lot of people could try to evade the individual mandate by submitting vaguely worded, undocumented claims. But again, approval is up to the bureaucracy. (Think: Lois Lerner.)