MEGAN MCARDLE: Fixing The Mandate From Hell. “I’m kind of surprised to hear a lot of liberals agree that the 30-hour rule is bad policy, and even more surprised to hear that it would be easy to repeal or reform. In fact, while I opposed the law, I find it easy to see why they designed an employer mandate for all employers who worked more than 30 hours, and difficult to imagine how it could be reformed. Let’s start with the reason for the employer mandate — two reasons, actually. The first is that President Barack Obama promised that if you like your insurance, you’ll be able to keep it, and while this was not true, they wanted it to be at least kinda true. . . . This isn’t just politically hard; it’s actually hard. There isn’t a lot of money to go around right now, and weak labor markets are going to magnify the cost of whatever decision you make. There haven’t been any easy solutions in health care for decades now, and the 30-hour rule is no exception.”