Administration officials announced on Tuesday that they will delay by one year the 2010 health care law’s requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance that meets certain standards. Many complained that the reporting requirements were too complicated, so the Obama administration has offered the befuddled businesses a reprieve until 2015, by which time they’ll have a plan to simplify the process. It shouldn’t affect that many people though, as most employers already provide the coverage that the law requires.
The Hill reports:
Delaying the requirement until 2015 is an enormous victory for businesses that had lobbied against the healthcare law.
It also means that one of healthcare reform’s central requirements will be implemented after the 2014 midterm elections, when the GOP is likely to use the Affordable Care Act as a vehicle to attack vulnerable Democrats.
In a White House blog post, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett wrote that the administration believed it needed to give employers “more time to comply with the new rules.”“This allows employers the time to test the new reporting systems and make any necessary adaptations to their health benefits while staying the course toward making health coverage more affordable and accessible for their workers,” Jarrett wrote Tuesday evening.
Jarrett also wrote that the delay would help in “cutting red tape and simplifying the reporting process.”
“We have heard the concern that the reporting called for under the law about each worker’s access to and enrollment in health insurance requires new data collection systems and coordination,” Jarrett said. “So we plan to re-vamp and simplify the reporting process.”
Then -- before I could count to "3," Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) renewed their calls for repealing the law in full.
I believe this has become a regular event for the leaders of the "Do Nothing" House GOP.
With the old masters of obfuscation out of Congress, no doubt there will be a much smoother transition into this next phase of the ACA, so probably for the best.
