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."

Comments

Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[FooAtWFU]

More regulatory uncertainty! Yay!

Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[cod3r_]

Maybe they did realize that during this tough economic time (that will probably go on forever since we only consume and don't actually produce anything) it might be a bad thing to force businesses to offer health insurance that is rapidly rising.. Our company only employees 22 people and we provide health insurance that costs us somewhere in the neighborhood of 75k/year.. Having gone up about 20% since obama care passed.

Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[I'm New Around Here]

Hawaii has a better method, which I believe is also unique among the states.

Employers have to provide an insurance plan to their employees. The employer doesn't have to pay for it, just be a member of a group plan.

I think the minimum employee number that requires this is 15. So if you want guaranteed coverage, get a job at any medium sized business.

The part of the law that makes sense is that there is no 'individual mandate' provision.

Re: Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[ebno-10db]

So far, obamacare sounds a lot like the usual healthcares we enjoy in EU countries

And Canada, Japan, Australia, etc.

Unfortunately it's not. It's structured as a big giveaway to for-profit insurance companies and big pharma. Hopefully that will get fixed before it banrupts us. I've been a big proponent of UHC for decade, but Obamacare is about the worse plan to implement it I've ever seen.

Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[jamesborr]

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). If we truly "nationalize" the industry, you end up either throwing the trial lawyers under the bus, which would probably be the best case for the taxpayer, but not good for a significant source of democratic campaign cash -OR- you have the trial lawyers going after the government directly for malpractice payouts. The former might actually be a plus for nationalizing health care -- i.e. the majority wanted government to run and be responsible for doctors and nurses and hospitals and so forth -- no problem, but don't sue if anything untoward happens or perfection is not achieved when government bureaucrats make the decisions on what and how care is provided. The alternative is somewhat scarier to be honest. Mistakes happen (which it seems like they must), the same or even empowered trial lawyers guild steps in to sue the government, which then re-directs more taxpayer money to those harmed, with the trial lawyers take a percentage on, which cuts another chunk of that lucre back to the politicians -- wash and repeat -- and see how corrupt this process end up...

Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[Sigmon]

You obviously do not realize that the REASON medical care is so expensive in the U.S. to begin with is largely because of government interference. The level of government regulation in the healthcare business (and healthcare insurance) nationally has been consistently INCREASING over the past 30 years or so... and it keeps getting more and more expensive. Are you seeing a pattern here?

You liberal retards kill me. Additional government control fails to lower prices... What's your answer? MORE GOVERNMENT!

Re:Oh, look! Just what the economy needs!

[MightyMartian]

The NHS is a wreck for a lot of reasons. And really, it's a hybrid system, still allowing private health care in a limited form. Look to Germany, which has a universal system and manages it very well.

And as to standards of care, well the problem in the US is that the standard of care is directly proportional to the kind of insurance you can afford. If you don't have good health insurance, or even health insurance at all, and you have a major medical crisis, you're in real trouble.

I'm a Canadian, and while our system has its flaws, my experience with it has been very good. In 2006, my wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, had to have two surgeries, the lost one being a total thyroidectomy. My income was limited, we had two kids in grade school, and by the time of her second surgery the business I worked for had went under. We were able to keep our house (though finances were very stretched as I was on unemployment) and our credit rating and thus within a year or two, with a new job, we were able to deal with remaining debts incurred. In other words, a disease that may very well have proven ruinous in the United States was, in the Canadian universal system, not only survivable from a health point of view, but also a financial point of view.

I make a lot more money now than I did seven years ago, and I suppose on a purely short-sighted selfish level I can grump about the amount of my taxes on top of premiums that I pay for health coverage, but having come out of a major medical crisis with my finances intact and without being saddled with a vast mortgage just to pay the bills, I can safely say even if the system cost me twice as much a month as it does now, I'd stick with the universal system any day of the week.

So, is this delay legal?

[msauve]

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?

Re:This'll take awhile for people to accept

[Temkin]

Yea, we'll get used to having beurecrats make decisions regarding our famililies heathcare. I mean, having the IRS target the businesses of political opponents is nothing compared to denying Grandma her hip replacement because you voted for the wrong candidate.

What surprises me is...

[RivenAleem]

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.

The 50 employee limit

[tlambert]

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.

Re:Fucking politicians...

[TheGratefulNet]

its not the politicians, this time. its the most wonderful 'business men'. you know, the 'job creators'. all hail the job creators! they ask and we supply them with whatever their little hearts desire.

who runs bartertown? businessmen.

obama is a dick. he sold us out. I hated bush but I'm now thinking obama is just about as bad, just not as much of a war-monger (not a blatant one, at any rate) but he has done virtually nothing that he promised. what a wuss!

too bad that we had no choice last 2 elections. we could choose from bad vs really bad. I don't think the R-guys would have done any better, but we certainly were lied to when we were promised 'change we can believe in'. what a load of horse-shit!