The administration suddenly announced last night that the requirement that all employers with 50 or more workers offer health insurance has been delayed until 2015.
If an employer with 50 or more workers did not provide health insurance to their full time workers in 2014, they would have been subject to a fine of $2,000 per worker. The employer would have also been subject to a $3,000 fine for each worker that went to the insurance exchanges if the employer package was not affordable.
Why did the administration delay the large employer mandate?
Because many employers have been in the early stages of planning to cut back the hours of workers in order to avoid having to offer insurance to those customarily considered part time, those who work at least the 30 hours per week the law established for defining a full time worker––and they haven’t been bashful in telling their employees why. In addition, there has been growing evidence that some employers were holding back on hiring in order to avoid more of the mandate costs at a time of high unemployment.
While the administration cited employer administration issues with mandate reporting as the reason for the delay, the bottom line is that the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) was looking like it was about to be successfully labeled a job killer and the administration wanted to avoid that.
You also have to wonder if all of the reporting challenges were just with employers or was the administration also having trouble with the complex employer mandate information systems they will ultimately have to build?