Posted on 04/01/2013 12:49:13 PM PDT by tobyhill
Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation.
The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan.
This choice option, already available to many big businesses, was supposed to become available to small employers in January. But administration officials said they would delay it to 2015 in the 33 states where the federal government will be running insurance markets known as exchanges. And they will delay the requirement for other states as well.
The promise of affordable health insurance for small businesses was portrayed as a major advantage of the new health care law, mentioned often by White House officials and Democratic leaders in Congress as they fought opponents of the legislation.
Supporters of the health care law said they were disappointed by the turn of events.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Whoopee!
ObamaCare is eating itself alive. LOL! Watch what happens when BIG Union Dues and BIG Business pass their new amnesty reform. This is only going to get uglier.
There is NOTHING about this grotesque piece of legislation that works as advertised, and at (currently) 6 times the original cost.
This monstrosity needs to be repealed
Bureaucrats and attorneys thrive on complexity. This law is made to order for them.
Valerie Jarrett finally realized that if this went forward as planned the Rats were gonna get their asses kicked come midterm elections...
So they delay Small Business requirements until after Nov. 14.
Bet the bank on it!
Remember, there is
NEVER ANYTHING WRONG WITH LIBERAL IDEAS.
If Obamacare fails, it’ll be because of some evil private entity that sabotaged it, or because they didn’t go all the way to single payer.
Gee, what a surprise. People won't get to experience Obamacare in action until AFTER the next midterm elections. How fortunate for Democrat politicians.
So, if slavery was still legal and congress passed a bill outlawing slavery and the president signed it into law, would he have the authority to postpone it?
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking when I read the headline!!! What a bunch of snakes!!!
I was actually hoping it would be implemented and be as painful as possible.
Any other provisions going into effect in ‘14 that would inflict some financial hurt in liberals’ wallets?
“Supporters of the health care law said they were disappointed by the turn of events.”
These idiots had better prepare themselves for a helluva lot more disappointment as this monstrosity is implemented.
“But administration officials said they would delay it to 2015”
Ain’t it great how the President can do whatever the hell he wants. Enforce a law, don’t enforce a law, change a law, ignore a law, delay a law, ignore parts of a law, rewrite a law, grant waivers. Terrific.
Remember the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)?
I sat on a committee in 1998 that was trying to figure the best way to implement some of the computerized parts of that law. It was VERY slow going. We met once a month and most times didn’t accomplish much as the government hadn’t answered our hard, real world questions generated as a result of our last meeting.
I sold my business in 1999, retired, and gladly left this bureaucratic nightmare behind. However I have friends who are still in the industry telling me, 15 years later, that there are still major parts of HIPAA that haven’t been implemented, mostly having to do with electronic insurance claims, electronic payment for same and electronic medical records.
Here’s the bottom line: HIPAA was a pretty complicated law. 15 years of contractors busting their asses and it’s still not done. But HIPAA is like a third grade project compared to the complexity of nobamacare.
They delayed the exchanges until 2015. This is the first of many, many delays you’ll see. The closer we get to 2014 the more delays you’ll see.
Personally, I think nobamacare will collapse under it’s own weight. Mostly because they are trying to do way, way too many things that have never been done before. I suspect, properly done, nobama care would take at least 20, maybe 25, years to implement.
I have a question, then.
You speak about the whole exchange thing being delayed...”the exchanges”. This story is headlined about a federal exchange for small business (I’m presuming over 50 employees but still a small business) being delayed, then goes on to say that it will be delayed for other states beyond the 33 where feds are in charge of exchanges.
Here’s a category I never see discussed. This would be for people who work for a small business with so few employees there is no mandate on the business to provide health insurance. There are plenty of those people. They didn’t before, and they wouldn’t now, get health insurance via an employer-provided plan. The business is just too small for that.
However, as I understand it, the IRS is supposed to demand that you have health insurance or else you will either fall under a fine if you don’t, or under a subsidy if you don’t and decide to comply with the individual mandate, but are deemed too low-income to afford it.
In the latter case you would purchase insurance from an exchange or qualify under an expanded Medicaid program. That is assuming there was an exchange or there was expanded Medicaid where you lives.
Does this story mean anything for the person in THAT situation? What about the individual mandate on people whose employers never did provide an insurance plan and still don’t? Will the IRS still try to force those individuals to buy an approved plan or subsidize them to do do? Will an individual still face rules and punishments under the IRS enforcement while employers get a delay, or never have to do anything at all because they are too small?
And will this exchange delay, coupled with lack of Medicaid expansion in certain states, keep the IRS off the backs of individual taxpayers such as the category I described??
"That is assuming...there was expanded Medicaid coverage where you lives."
Those are very good questions.
Please understand that I’m NOT an nobamacare expert. I’ve been out of the industry since 1999. Most of my knowledge, what little there is of it :), comes from reading news articles, hanging our here on FR and from a few buds who are still in the industry.
If your employer’s company is small to the point nobamcare does not apply, the employees still have to buy insurance through the state exchanges. Or in the case of of a state that has it’s stuff together and told the nobamacare thugs to take a hike (like my South Carolina) and doesn’t have an exchange, directly from the Feds. I think.
I’d assume if the exchanges are late to market, the purchase of individual policies would be delayed as well. I think.
Please take this with a grain of salt. Like I said, I’m no nobamacare expert, thankfully.
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