Delay for Employers on Large Group Mandate to 2015
The Obama administration last Tuesday July 2nd, 2013 announced a one-year delay in the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees offer coverage to their workers or pay a penalty.
Administration officials said the delay was in response to employers’ concerns about the law’s reporting requirements. Delaying the law’s “employer responsibility” provision would give employers more time to comply and give the government more time to consider ways to “simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law,” according to a blog post from Mark J. Mazur, the assistant secretary for tax policy at the Department of Treasury.
Most of the employers impacted by the delay already offer coverage to workers, Mazur said. He added that the announcement did not delay the Oct. 1 scheduled start of the online marketplaces, or exchanges, or the subsidies intended to help individuals with low to middle incomes purchase coverage or the requirement that most individuals purchase coverage or pay a fine.
It’s unclear what effect the announcement will have on the health law’s goal of providing coverage to millions of American who do not now have it. Although many large employers do provide insurance, the benefits packages vary widely. Workers whose employers do not offer coverage, and now have an additional year to do so, will be forced to go to the exchanges to get coverage.
Source:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/July/02/employer-mandate-delayed.aspx
