Employer mandate to offer affordable health insurance delayed until 2015

The Treasury Dept. has announced that employers will not be required to offer health insurance under Obamacare until January 2015 rather than 2014.

Regulations and compliance requirements were just too complex to meet the 2014 deadline … Ooops!

Among the issues were reporting requirements related to full-time workers and the requirement to determine affordability of the coverage based on employee premium contributions as a percentage of household income.

This delay seems to mean that more workers, especially in smaller employers, will be using the health insurance exchanges in 2014, thus driving up the cost of the tax rebates and adding more complexity to the issue the following year when the employer mandate does go into effect.

Yikes, this is not good.

“The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA [Affordable Care Act} mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees.” From the Treasury blog

I just love the spin I highlighted in bold, “moving toward making health coverage affordable?” News flash; employers have been trying to make health coverage affordable for the last three decades … and Obamacare ain’t helped much in that regard.