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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."
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."
Not sure where the uncertainty is. Says right there - January 1, 2015.
Right. Just like it said the deadline was this year, before...
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.
It's not what /. needs. I like ragging on the guberment any chance i get, but wtf does this story have to do with technology (other than using a computer to write it maybe).
The chief reason cited for the delay is that the information infrastructure is not ready to handle the new processes and products yet. It is basically an IT project running 12 months behind (at 18 months out) and probably a few billion over budget, and we can all relate to that amiright?
I think the Dems/Admin want to keep obamacare implementation out of the news by doing this, so as to not risk their congress critters that may be coming up for election.
The law had some good parts to it...the sections pertaining to pre-existing conditions is good, and I suppose that letting kids stay on their parents insurance till in their 20's "may" be good, although I think most normal "kids" should be well out on their own and supporting themselves by the time they are 20-21.
But obamacare when it comes into full swing, is going to raise the $$$ of healthcare quite a bit on the young and healthy. It penalizes people that previously had really good benefits at work, making them too $$ for the employers to continue to offer.
This is what comes from "we have to pass the law first to see what's in it...".
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not sure where the uncertainty is. Says right there - January 1, 2015.
Well what was it a week ago?
Dark Reflection
Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.
That's because, as any intelligent person knows at this point, the republicans and democrats are two faces of the same coin.
No one has approached or even mentioned the real reason for healthcare cost increases over the last 30 years. There is a little law that goes by the acronym EMTALA. Go read about it and apply a little economics to the equation.
Simply stated, our masters have no desire to reduce the cost of healthcare because there is too much money to be made from a completely captive audience. Whether you take the capitalist point of view or the socialist point of view, the end result is the same - we the people get screwed out of our earnings and don't have a choice in the matter. The status quo is maintained.
The problem is that the people wanted socialized medicine and we got an insurance scam. Of course the correct name for this is Romneycare since it closely resembles what Romney implemented in Ma., but that wouldn't have made for a good fight betreen the R's and the D's.
The real problem is that healthcare costs too much in the first place. You can't just insurance that away. What we really need is for the federal government to tell the whole crooked industry, "Just one more $2 ahh stick or $8 tylenol and we nationalize the whole damned thing!".
The difference is that in some areas decisions that were made by insurance companies are now made by publicly accountable government employees.
Which would be interesting if the "publicly accountable" part were even remotely true. Look at the political actions of managers and supervisors in the IRS, and the utter stonewalling by that agency and un-shocking lack of curiosity by their boss who heads the executive branch, the president, as to who to hold accountable for exactly the sort of capricious behavior that you're suggesting won't happen. The IRS is hiring tens of thousands of brand new, un-accountable, essentially un-fireable new employees explicitly to have them make judgement calls about whether individual people have been sufficiently in compliance with a gigantic, byzantine new law that nobody understands. They will decide whether those individuals ultimately may end up having wages garnished, businesses ruined, homes seized, or spend time in prison if they aren't doing it exactly right. That you see such new power and enforcement in the hands of the IRS as an improvement is unfortunate.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
Having been tested in reality it has a lot better shot than some ideologically or "reason" based idea that somebody pulled out of their ass.
I pay about $65/wk ($3380/yr) into my employer healthcare. They pay about 3 times that ($10140/yr). Multiply that by the roughly 450 employees on the plan and it's the single greatest expense they have after employee salaries and taxes.
Personally, I'd much rather take that $13500 (my cost plus theirs) in my paycheck so I could shop around for my own insurance. The employer offered plan includes tons of crap for women and children that don't apply to me, while omitting many things that would be a huge help to me such as hearing aids.
Making health insurance/care portable would go a LONG way to making the entire system more competitive and the customers a lot happier, but the system (legally, financially, and historically) is basically set up to make sure that the cash flow for the insurance companies remains reliable (and growing). Do you expect an industry with a grip on about 1.5 trillion dollars of spending annually to just give it up? Hah.
The real chief reason is the democrats don't want to lose their asses in the next election when people finally figure out what a cluster fuck the health care bill is and how for many of the current people who HAVE health care already it will mean more money out of their pockets for worse coverage.
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.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Simply go to a universal system" would mean higher cost for worse coverage, just like in UK. NHS costs about $5K a year per taxpayer.
Here is a better way of looking at it. Annual costs: US = $8233 per citizen (84% coverage), UK = $3433 per citizen (total coverage). Your "higher cost for worse coverage" is completely wrong and quoting cost per taxpayer is not an informative way to look at it.
You're only now thinking that Obama is just as bad?
The rest of us were telling you that bad during the first election. And guess what? The next guy isn't going to be much better -- regardless of whether he's Mr. Red State or Mr. Blue State. Might even be worse. Unfortunately, these rah-rah Reddit teenagers that get little baby chubbies in their pants as soon as they're old enough to vote, because "if we just vote Obama/Romney/Whoever this time, we will finally make a change to the world because this will totally be different than the past 230 years!" keep coming in thinking shit is just on the verge of turning around. Naive idiots.
While I have been disappointed in Obama, I don't think he is to blame for most of our problems. The real problem is out of my control. I can voter for a decent president. I can't vote for a decent representative for every small minded gerry-mandered district in America. You can see many states, Blue and Red that elect knowledgeable people who are good at representing the voters.
But time and time again there are places that always elect the incumbent who has become too entrenched to do anything good, or pants on head crazy people who can't be reasoned with.
We still try to do our best...
Cheap storage VM.
"Simply go to a universal system" would mean higher cost for worse coverage, just like in UK. NHS costs about $5K a year per taxpayer.
You are either completely unaware of how much the USA spends on healthcare or you're using some really inventive mathematics, because $5k/year is substantially less than what the USA spends.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time