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Obamacare Employer Mandate Delayed Until After Congressional Elections
theodp writes "If you hoped your employer would finally provide health insurance in 2014, take two aspirin and call your doctor in the morning — the morning of January 1st, 2015. The Obama administration will delay a crucial provision of its signature health-care law until 2015, giving businesses an extra year to comply with a requirement that they provide their workers with insurance. The government will postpone enforcement of the so-called employer mandate until 2015, after the congressional elections, the administration said Tuesday. Under the provision, companies with 50 or more workers face a fine of as much as $3,000 per employee if they don't offer affordable insurance."
More regulatory uncertainty! Yay!
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
And political expediency wins again
The question to ask is why would they want to delay implementation until after mid terms?
How many employers will just pay the fine. 3k per year per employee is less than a heathcare plan
Conveniently after the mid-term elections, where frustration with this trainwreck might reflect badly on those in power... One Turkish professor said "He talks like the president of the ACLU, and governs like Dick Cheney."
Is this delay specifically authorized by the law, or is the Obama administration simply going to fail to uphold a law they pushed to get passed?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The (near)-universal health care mandate for Americans strikes me as the kind of thing that takes a generation (about 20 years) for people to get used to and accept, just like the movement for equal rights for gays which was launched into the national consciousness by the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for military personnel adopted by Clinton (it was part of the reason why the Democrats lost control of Congress a year later).
On more than one occasion I'd have people spontaneously bring up "gays in the military" as a conversation topic and rant about how outrageous it was, destroying America's values, etc.
But time passes.
I've heard that this law forces people to carry health insurance, my religious belief prohibit purchasing things like insurance, and I've already been breaking the law for 14 years not carrying car insurance, but I'm going to have a hard time lying to my employer and saying "I have other health insurance" so they don't give me this.
What are people who can not, or do not want to have health insurance supposed to do when Obamacare goes into effect, apart from leave the United States?
Sure, business gets a reprieve but the rest of us still get the shaft by having to pay for our neighbor's healthcare despite them smoking a pack a week.
Nothing like having to spend money on something useless because the government tells us we have to do so.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The silver lining of the Supreme Court ruling, is that Obamacare is legally a tax. Mitch McConnell realized that taxes can be altered, or eliminated, in the budget reconciliation process. If the Republicans can get total control, even by slim majorities, Obamacare will die. Hillary Clinton is the best hope of keeping Obamacare alive.
Are people's illnesses also going to be delayed until January 1, 2015 if their employer has fewer than 50 employees? The mandate that people have to buy insurance is the bad part of the law. Having employers provide insurance was the upside.
The Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot with this illegal delay in implementation of this part of the law.
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How is it possible that Obama can just deceive to move the compliance date?
Doesn't this require approval and vote and discussion to change the law ?
How about we just arbitrarily move the date out 100 years?
So at this point companies DON'T have to provide you insurance, but you MUST carry insurance. So all those people who would have been covered if the business deadline wasn't pushed back will be forced to buy their own insurance on the individual market. Either that or pay the "tax." This is a recipe for real disaster.
The health insurance exchanges are nothing more, less and other than extensions of the Democratic Party. We have been well informed that the Democratic party has written off the white male. One thing for certain is that I WON'T be selected for the jury that tries the next Timothy McVeigh. In fact, the next Timothy McVeigh will not even be afforded due process like Dzhokhar Tsarnayev.
This experiment that is called America was fine while it lasted. Now is the time for the natural state of human affairs to resume: tyranny of the dominant traits over the recessive.
While there is probably a political angle to the decision, the reason for the delay is more prosaic:
Under the new law, companies with more than 50 employees must provide their workers with health insurance.* Those companies that do not comply are levied a per-employee tax penalty. Employees that do not receive coverage through their employer can purchase insurance on the open market, and low- and middle-income workers can avail themselves to government subsidies to purchase coverage. In other words, the government is attempting, through the tax code, to recoup the employee's health care subsidy from the employer.
In order to carry out the employer mandate, the Treasury Department needs to know which companies are opting out and also which employees are subsequently utilizing government subsidies for healthcare. This is a technical challenge that the IRS (the Tax Man) has determined they won't have ready in time for the Jan 1, 2014 deadline. Businesses, too, have complained that their duty and mechanism for reporting who they are covering with insurance is difficult and onerous. So the decision has been made to push back the deadline.
Because the whole mechanism is linked to taxes, it is difficult to push the deadline back by, say, six months, because it would be tough to figure out how to pro-rate both the subsidy and the penalty. Most health insurance contracts (employer-provided or otherwise) run from Jan 1 to Dec 31, anyway. So, they pushed the effective date back to the next tax / health insurance / calendar year.
Yes, the new deadline occurs after the 2014 elections. But considering there are national elections every two years in the United States, pushing any deadline back by one year yields a 50/50 chance of passing over an election year. Would pushing it back just six months be any better, how about two years?
* For those, both outside and inside the U.S., who are wondering why health insurance is a benefit attached to a person's job, rather than a social benefit from the government (like in most other countries) or something each person seeks on the open market (like automobile insurance), the answer is: "it's complicated." It isn't the result of any particular plan, that's for damn sure; but rather the long meandering course of history. Those who are curious should read Paul Starr's book The Social Transformation of American Medicine . The Affordable Care Act follows the path of having health insurance as a workplace benefit mostly because that is how most people in the U.S. already get it.
Ha! This is just silliness on the way to a single payer system. Right now I pay about $7k per employee per year for insurance. And my penalty is only $3k? What do you think I'm going to do when the employer mandate takes effect?
I'm just guessing, but the op probably doesn't go to doctors either. I had neighboring family like that when I grew up. I don't remember what the religion was, but if they got sick, they slept a lot and drank water. I never thought to ask about broken bones. If they refuse to get medical help and just die, it probably lowers the overall cost of healthcare. Kind of like how smokers reduce costs.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
It looks like Paula Dean and sons have a lot of free time now.
...denying Grandma her hip replacement ....
That's not true.
Listen to this segment on NPR in the mornings and they've been clearing up misconceptions about the act.
But if you REALLY want ot blame someone, blame FDR and Henry Kaiser (Kaiser Permanente Kaiser). FDR froze wages in WWII to keep inflation down and for other reasons (wars are NEVER good for economies!) and Kaiser wanting to lure good people to his firm thought, "If I can't pay them more, I'll give them health insurance!" and of course, his competition followed suite and that's how we got employer health insurance in the US.
...weak.
anyone accused of terrorism in connection with opposing the individual mandate of PPACA. If any judge jails me citing contempt, (s)he will have made me a POLITICAL PRISONER. Monitoring of the federal courts is a must to see to it that these political prisoners get the publicity necessary to oppose tyranny.
--
The Second Amendment is the enshrinement of a HENOPOLY, NOT MONOPOLY on the legitimate use of violence as stated in the Federalist Papers.
When government engages in suspicious activity, the burden of proving a negative must rest on the government.
I was unaware that Congress had passed a revision to ObamaCare?
The law states the mandate goes into effect in 2014.
But I guess the King has spoken and he can change things whenever it suits his agenda, regardless of what the law or the Constitution says.
Yikes... I hope I have the opportunity to call the cops myself on your terrorist ass.
Fuck off and die, traitor.
I just told my wife last week that this was going to happen. She said I was being pessimistic. Turns out I was just being realistic.
They don't have to pay the fine, or provide insurance. They just make their employees part timers.
I've seen some anecdotal evidence of this (from waitstaff at a couple different restaurants, security guards at my parking deck, blog posts). Unskilled labor positions (i.e. the people that were targeted to receive this benefit) are just having their hours cut to 30 hours/week because part time employees are not subject to the insurance requirement. With current employment trends, it's easy to hire some extra part timers to fill the gap. It's a non-issue for skilled laborers, because most already receive employer provided insurance.
The real problem here is this law was intended to require a benefit (i.e. minimum compensation) for people who do not generally receive it already. So now, not only will they not get insurance, but they're also facing a 25% cut in income.
How can any employer think that workers w/o health insurance work better than those who do? Most governments have figured out that the tax from cigarettes does not outweigh the cost to the economy of a sick worker, hence they are trying to get as many people to quit as possible. Health insurance is the same, the cost to keep workers healthy is worth it to have better workers. It also encourages the worker to stay with the company. The number of times I've heard of people moving job because where they were going had health insurance has to be some indication of it's worth to the employer.
... is a big part of the problem.
You want it privatized? Force them to compete. No more employer-provided healthcare to drive up costs for those of us who would rather shop on our own. I don't have employer-provided car insurance, yet the majority of the mileage on my car is from going to and from work. Decouple healthcare from your job. Let us shop for the health insurance that best meets our own needs.
Big whoop. The individual mandate is still in place. As a self-employed person who buys his own insurance, I have no idea if my current plan "qualifies." I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop or perhaps more than one shoe. If my current plan doesn't "qualify" am I suddenly going to get a gigantic rate increase even though I haven't needed medical care in 15 years? Or worse, my current provider decides to close its doors and I'm stuck paying a ludicrously high rate because the marketplace is now smaller.
...ramrod such bullshit laws down the throats of Americans, and then don't even want to obey to the letter of their own laws they passed when they find out that it adversely affects even their own ilk.
I'd feel lucky to just have had to do an appendectomy! When I was three I had to do an appendix *transplant* into myself. You don't know how good you had it.
Seriously though, the OP's religion's standpoint seems quite sensible and individualistic. Only first world country with that mindset these days is New Zealand it seems.
What fork is this AC OP?
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
So your point is that something that works in one state must work in all?
And to further expound on JackieBrown's excellent comment is that since legal open carry of handguns works so well in Idaho and other free states, I think it should be forced upon NY, Mass, NJ, Ill, CA, and all others too. All the politicians who profit from the continuance of violent crime in those blue states would never stand for that however.
That covers stuff and has none of that existing condition BS
but the new plans cover more stuff and junk plans are banded.
Stuff like mcdonalds mini med that if you get sick is total f**king garage
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This post was obviously modded up by another trailer parker, like 95 percent of the /. mods.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
only difference was, republicans didn't have some kind of collective diaperfull event over hipaa so we didn't have to listen to this kind of moronic conniptions.
I have a friend who has a company which has 53 full time employees.
He's been investigating how he can get rid of 5 of them, or at least convert them to part time, to escape this mandate.
Stair step functions have always been a problem when designing things like commission structures, and so on. If I make 6% commission on sales up to $10,000 a day, and 5% commission for sales of $20,000 a day or higher, then I get 6 cents on a dollar if I sell $10,000 or less and 5 cents on a dollar if I sell more. So if I sell $10,000, I get $600, but if I sell $10,001, I get $500.05; I don't break even until $12,000 in sales, where I make $600 again, and I don't start making money again until I start selling $12,001 ($600.05). You can be damn well sure that you aren't going to have any of your sales staff turning in total sales amounts between $10,001/day and $12,000/day, and if they are unable to get close to, but just under, the next point at which there's another stair, you can be damn sure there will be customers hearing "We're out of stock today, but we have a shipment coming in first thing tomorrow, I'll call you".
This whole "keep the insurance industry in business" welfare program for insurance companies this was a bad idea; if we are going to nationalize healthcare, we really should have gone single-payer and been done with it.
The delay will be just enough to get all the DemoCore reelected.
The '$3000' penalty is a lot less than $12,000 per employee and only applies to 20 of the 50 'full-time' employees.
Companies have two options:
1. Take the penalty and don't provide any healthcare.
2. Make employees other than the company controllers part-timers; no penalty and no requirement for healthcare.
Obama's calculus is just white-wash on a black-face.
People just want full insurance without having to fill out forms, switching providers, doctors or anything else. The only people crying about money are the Tea Party weirdos who cry about dropping a penny in their couches. The fact is, the Administration should have just simply took over the entire health care industry. When you have an industry that can only make money off healthy people, then you simply cannot expect to make money unless you let the sick and dying go. Which is the opposite of what is SUPPOSED to happen. Much like the military, it needs to be socialized. All of it. The industry was in shambles before this act, and it will more than likely be in shambles after. Everyone should be allowed to receive health care for free. It's 2013, we have the means, we have the wealth, and we have the regulatory power to make it all work.
any larger company will realize that it would be cheaper to pay the 3000$ per person fine than it is to supply healthcare for every one of the employees. obama is pulling crap out of his ass if he really thinks that employers will stop being capitalists.
The whole thing is one big CF. Remember these great talking points before Obamacare became law?
“The time is now, we can’t afford to wait any longer.”
“Americans are dying out here.”
“My mother died for lack of health insurance.”
If we can’t wait any longer, why is the Obama administration delaying implementation of the employer mandate? Americans are still dying, right? How many more mothers will die because they don’t have health insurance?
This is just a cynical, political ploy so the American sheople don’t realize the unintended consequences of Obamacare before the mid-term elections.
"Politicians always tell the truth, when they're calling each other liars."
If you hoped your employer would fire you, or reduce you to being a part time employee, or if already part time, limited to 29.5 hours weekly to avoid the added costs of obamacare, then you might may be disappointed for a while.
On the other hand, you may be rejoicing this small reprieve from this disaster
For the last 60 years or so the main medical system in this country has been government-operated and paid for via taxation. It has its faults but people generally agree it is a good idea and nobody from any political group wants to see it gone. Minor fees exist for some things but in general all medical care is free at the point of use. If it costs 200K to cure your rare cancer then you still get the treatment without charge.
The average UK person does not know that much about America. I could stop someone in the street at random and would be a good chance they could not name your two main political parties for example, or know which one Obama belongs to. People do know that there was historically no public medical system and think it's very creepy that when Americans get sick and don't have money they just get left in the street to die. Nobody understands why there is so much opposition to having a proper health service now that Obama has passed this law.
No real point to this post except a FYI how it looks from outside USA.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
They have to spill out who can be the best liar first.
Sounds like the businesses were given forgiveness for a year, but individuals without insurance will still be penalized. So Obama passed the penalty from the business to the individual. Not good politics....
If something is written into law, can the executive branch just declare, "Nah, we won't implement the law on the date that it was suppose to. We'll implement it when we feel like it."?
If this is delayed until the next presidential election, and a Republican wins the presidency, couldn't the GOP effectively block Obamacare by saying they won't implement it until the year 3016?
Let me just say... YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Getting stuff set up for this has been a pain in the neck. Figuring out what calculations is a pain in the neck because they're all worded in legal jargon and refer to other laws at various points. It's horrible. We almost have everything finished, but there are still a few things we need to fix up. The delay means this isn't going to be rushed out the door and there'll be time to polish things a bit and do some real testing on it. This is great news for me, even if it might not be for the public at large.
"after the congressional elections" meaning bad news for someone.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
repeating something that has been shown to not work, over and over again.
I take it you mean that the cowardly idiots there can pretend to feel like men while everyone else suffers the consequences. After all, your need to compensate is much more important, isn't it.
According to my friends that live there and actually use the system, it's a whole lot better than what we have here.
because in the real world everyone has the time and luxury to evaluate all of the competing hospitals when they are unconscious from an auto wreck. you see son, when you grow up, you'll realize that the world is a lot more complicated than you think it is from your mommies basement.
I suppose you believe in Santa Clause too.
I have a small business consulting/contracting and now upto 3 emplyees. I've been paying my own insurance out of pocket the past 6 years and has run me about $75 to now $87 a month for a decent plan that meets my needs well. (Nothing special, $2500 deductable, $35 doctor vists, prescription drug coverage) But again in the past 6 years I've been to my Doctor 7 times. 6 for annual check ups, free under my coverage, and once for a sinus infecction. I was young in my late 20's and now early 30's and single. I also pay for dental coverage.
The way my Dental works is pretty simple: they pay for twice a year cleanings, once a year x-rays, and then 80% of any non cosmetic proceedures. I don't have the best teeth in the world, and the solution is going to be a few crowns before things get worse. I was able to shop around and actually get prices from different dentists. I wish my health insurance could work much the same way. There would need to be emergancy coverage that is good anywhere: i.e. heart attack, etc.. But for a lot of other proceedures hospitals should have a 1 price policy, not this negioated rate mess where say a bypass is $18,000 for company A, $26000 for company B, and $50,000 if you come off the street. Hospitals should set the price: say $25,000 and then your insurance tell you if they cover 100%, 50%, 80% or whatever. And the prices should be upfront and on their websites in a PDF. An example for me personally is the fact that Carpel Tunnel surgery is in my future. Its not critical but I woud shop at the various hospitals around town to see where I felt I could get the best care for the $.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Someone like me -- that currently has to work two part time jobs because no one seems to want to offer full time with benefits -- gets health insurance under this bill. I have some relatively minor medical issues that, while not impacting day to day life, does need to be checked up on regularly. Pre-existing condition.
And I am not some bum either. I have multiple degrees in the STEM fields. I WANT to work and put these skills to use. Those fuckers just do NOT want to hire right now, and the few that do, expect slave labor and hours (it all seems to be contract work right now, under the guise of "We need to see if this position is a good fit!", but never with benefits and never a very clear answer on when the contract turns into full time...).
We need to stop framing this debate as a MONEY issue, and start talking about it as a MORAL issue. We have it backwards. We keep debating "How do we save money to pay for it?", rather than saying "Everyone WILL have coverage, what do we need to do to make it happen?". Stop assuming it can't be done. We need to WILL IT to be done, and work it out as we go. We need a leap of faith moment; make a strict stand for what is right, and DO IT. We need to agree as a country that no one will be left behind. NO ONE. Stop being scared of what will happen to you personally, because in the richest nation on earth, no one will be left out. You may not be rich, but no one is under a bridge without food and health. We will make it happen.
People deserve to live healthy happy productive lives. A small cost up front for health care helps plenty of people like me live normal productive lives, where I pay taxes and all the regular things, but I very well might be in a hospital or dead if I wasn't treated years ago. I am a NET GAIN on the system. Plus, I'm human and I appreciate others saying it is worth it to keep me healthy. I would be happy to help you should you develop anything in the future, whether it is a cold and you need a few days home to recover all the way up to the more serious. I do not want to see anyone suffering, especially not in a country that is rich enough and technologically advanced enough to take care of it. Of course, I hope you never do get sick... but it may happen, and almost certainly will the older you get.
If taxes go up, so what. If health insurance goes up, so what. Everyone deserves a healthy life. If there is a problem with that amount of money being pulled out of your paycheck, why not ask the "elephant in the room question": WHY ARE WAGES NOT GOING UP TO COMPENSATE? Perhaps it is business that should be answering questions more than anyone else -- stagnant wages, lowering benefits, longer work hours, all while corporate profits and executive compensation are peaking. Is it really poor people and government that deserves our wrath right now?
They have known about this for a long time now and have had plenty of time to comply. Hell they have had enough time to go on every national news show and bitch about it and cry about laying off people. If they spent their time complying with the law instead of bitching about it for a year they wouldn't need an additional year.
But you have to remember that a significant "influencer" on the democratic side of the legislation was the trial lawyers guild (hence no tort reform in the bill).
Nice strawman there. Medical malpractice suits only really add about 1-2% to the total costs of healthcare in the economy [1]. Bigger factors that influence the cost of healthcare are: 1) For-profit insurers who have an incentive to take your premiums and stiff you when you're actually sick. 2) Big Pharma charging $1k/dose for their latest life saving drugs and fighting tooth and nail (and winning) against generics after their patents expire 3) Medical equipment manufacturers that charge defense-contract rates for their required equipment ($300 plastic tubing).
[1] http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/would-tort-reform-lower-health-care-costs/
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
That's one heck of a big "if"; they've been awful, just awful. Democrats are no stars, but I can't see any way I could vote for a republican at this juncture. When it comes to choosing the lesser of two evils, the Democrats win every time. Republicans have to stop screwing up left and right on women's issues, they they have to stop dragging their feet in congress, they have to stop the outright fraud in their conventions, they have to stop the superstitious crazy, they have to start paying attention to the people who don't have their own business, they have to stop trampling the constitution at every step (dems too, but the republicans are much worse), they have to stop making laws designed to keep the poor from voting...
I just can't see it. It seems to me that every move the republicans have made since about 2001 has been designed to push me towards the democrats. My guess is we're looking at democrat control of both houses, and 8 years of Hillary Clinton.
When the choice is between "wish it was better" and "OMFG, PLAGUE!"... well, you know.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Tongue depressor? You mean like McDonald's food?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The title makes it sound like it was intentionally delayed to correspond with elections. The truth is we don't know the actual motivation at this time, and such a headline plants a suggestion of motivation into the readers' head.
A more neutral headline would just read "...delayed for a year" or "...delayed until [date]".
This is an example of how news writers can be technically accurate yet still plant non-factual or unverified suggestions into readers' mind. Slanted news sources uses such tricks all the time. It's quite possible to manipulate readers without directly lying.
Table-ized A.I.
The reason it's a steaming pile of shit is because you Americans are so afraid of the word "socialism" that you will implement the most ghastly, awkard and expensive medical systems simply because you're afraid that Jesus will puke in his cornflakes if you simply go to a universal system.
Just do what the Swiss and Germans do: keep the insurance aspect, but prohibit profits.
I had to keep checking the top banner to make sure I wasn't on freerepublic after reading the comments on here. So much utter nonsense about death panels and across-state-lines-magic. I don't think I've seen so many misinformed comments on slashdot before, and I've seen a few emacs and kde4 threads in my time.
I'm sure this has absolutely nothing to do with forecasts of employers have large layoffs. Wouldn't want that before a midterm now would we? Kind of like releasing the notification as people are leaving work holiday.
It is probably hard to go cold turkey politically due to the massive integration of insurance companies and big pharma.
To use in old medical terms, at some point you are supposed to remove the leeches...