“Meaningless.” This is the word Speaker of the House John Boehner used to describe the Obamacare healthcare mandate being pushed back to the middle of April, and this is a fair statement. There is no point in even placing a deadline if the President and his administration do not plan to make anyone follow it.

There have been years of planning for Obamacare to go into effect, but much like everything else that makes its way through the government, it is taking longer than expected. Americans, however, are not going to rush the process of completing enrollment in Obamacare when they know that if they put it off there will be no consequences.

Reince Priebus, Republican national committee chairman, described Obamacare’s failure to hold strong to their deadline, saying, “Another day, another ObamaCare delay from the same Obama administration that won’t work with Republicans to help Americans suffering from the unintended consequences of the Democrats’ failed health care law. Democrats in leadership may say they are doubling down on ObamaCare but you have to wonder how many more unilateral delays their candidates running in 2014 can withstand.”

The number of Americans deciding to enroll last minute in Obamacare has skyrocketed, which directly correlates with the online system having trouble keeping up. An easy solution to this would be to not wait until the last minute to enroll. We tend to blame the government right away when problems arise but with something as simple as enrollment, Americans could take a stand by doing it sooner rather than later.

The Obama administration should consider penalizing the people who have failed to enroll or have chosen to enroll late. It is not ideal to have to penalize American citizens to make them enroll in a program that gives them health insurance, but it is better than continuing to wait for people to enroll whenever they want.

There are people expecting this program to be fully implemented soon and, by missing the deadline for the enrollment mandate, the administration continues to push back the date that people will actually begin to receive their full benefits from Obamacare.

The people who will be able to enroll late and not be penalized will be people who have proof that they tried to register and had trouble because of errors in the website. Aaron Albright, spokesman for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services mentioned in The New York Times that the extension will help people who have special circumstances or complex cases. They want people who are already near the finish line to be ready to be allowed to finish registration, but this is wishful thinking at best.

It is practically human nature to procrastinate and wait until the last minute to do something. If Obamacare is continually pushed back in its deadline people are going to continue to wait until the last minute to register and nothing is ever going to get done. If Americans want to see Obamacare happen sooner rather than later they need to get enrolled in the same fashion.

It is time for the administration to set a deadline and stick to it. They cannot continue to wait on people to sign up for health insurance. If people want to sign up, they will. But close the deadline when you say you are going to, so we can start moving forward rather than waiting in a government-sponsored stand still.