The Obama administration has delayed the employer mandate under Obamacare until 2015, citing complaints from businesses about the complexity of some of the law’s requirements. Funny what happens when you read the bill to find out what’s in it.
From Politico:
The Obama administration is postponing the federal health care law’s insurance mandate for employers next year, in a major concession to the business community and lawmakers who have become increasingly vocal about the law’s potential to damage a slowly recovering economy.
The announcement doesn’t affect the main coverage tools in the law — the individual mandate and the new subsidized insurance markets.
But the delay, revealed just as the administration was stepping up efforts to educate the public about enrollment this fall, is at least partial proof of what Republicans have been predicting for months: that the health law is way too complex to be ready to go live in 2014.
I think some have been warning about this train wreck for some time.
https://twitter.com/RepMikePompeo/status/324596917998850048
Democrat Sen. Baucus calling #ObamaCare a #trainwreck should illustrate just how bad things are going to be http://t.co/epVFxmu7l7
— Former Rep. Kenny Marchant (@RepKenMarchant) April 17, 2013
Bad headlines for the President's health care law continue to rack up: http://t.co/DuAMuFlXWo #TrainWreck
— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) June 11, 2013
When an author of #Obamacare says it's too complicated, you know it's a #Trainwreck -> http://t.co/h9iI4FTWNZ
— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) May 14, 2013
Via @newsobserver: “Some NC employers cut worker hours to avoid cost of health care reform” http://t.co/dTgO6KgEt9 #trainwreck
— John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) June 3, 2013
Small businesses are in the confusing “fog of Obamacare” due to burdensome regulations. http://t.co/T3ZoCFUPjl #TrainWreck
— Michele Bachmann (@MicheleBachmann) May 24, 2013
But as some smaller employers have already begun cutting back hours of employees and laying off others in an attempt to reduce the impact of the law’s requirements, many will lose their existing coverage they may have had as full time employees. Since the individual mandate is not being delayed, does this mean these employees will still be required to purchase insurance on their own or pay a fine?
As Forbes points out, the delay could also potentially contribute to the unraveling of the existing employer sponsored insurance market.
Even if the Obama administration’s delay lasts for only one year, that delay will give firms time to restructure their businesses to avoid offering costly coverage, leading to an expansion of the individual insurance market and a shrinkage of the employer-sponsored market. Remember that the administration is not delaying the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to buy health coverage or face a fine.
But delaying the employer mandate could lead, ultimately, to its repeal, which would do much to transition our insurance market from an employer-sponsored one to an individually-purchased one. Indeed, earlier this year, a bill to do just that was introduced by Rep. Charles Boustany (R., La.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah). If the employer mandate were to ultimately be repealed, or never implemented, today’s news may turn out to be one of the most significant developments in health care policy in recent memory.
Perhaps Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman has it right – what about the rest of us?
Dear Obama administration: Businesses aren't the only ones raising "concerns about the complexity" of #Obamacare. What about the rest of us?
— STEW ??? ⚾️ ? (@StewSays) July 2, 2013
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Comments
Only one thing about this is certain.
Either a family member or benefactor of some capos in the DC Mob were about to be negatively impacted and/or the polling was indicating a voting fiasco for the Mob in 2014.
I can understand why you might suspect that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.
Bu-but what about those mid-term elections?
Wait, that’s 2014 conniving bastid..
This law has to be repealed — not argued about.
What section of the law gives the executive branch the authority to delay implementation of the employer mandate?
“Obamacare: It’s. The. Law. (But We’ll Ignore It and Pretend It Isn’t, at Least Until After the Next Election).”
I suspect its something to do with the unlimited power the Sec of HHS has to implement as she/he sees fit.
I, for one, want to see the language in the law that gives the Executive Branch the power to delay implementation.
Does Obama have the legal authority to delay the mandate?
The Affordable Care Act is quite clear as to the effective date of the employer mandate. “The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013,” concludes Section 1513.
Phrases that begin “the Secretary may…”, “The Secretary shall…”, the Secretary will…” are excellent places to look to see where the authority is granted. Also look for the words “waive” and “waiver”, which appear hundreds of times in the Obamacare Act.
The same weasel words appear in the Senate version of the amnesty bill. That’s why it is very reasonable to question whether the promises of more border agents and other means to secure the border will ever happen. It is not phrased exactly this way but the effect is the same: “The Secretary may…” decide not to secure the border.
Looks to me they cleverly covered their nasty little backsides with this disclaimer.
“The law must be implemented (SOME TIME) in the months after December 2013.
It does not specify the law goes into affect Jan. 1, 2014.
Anyone got a different take?
The law of Valery Jarrett. This needs to go immediately to a nice Federal Court as it is clearly unequal treatment of individuals under the law. maybe the Republican leadership of the U.S House of Representatives or GOP party leadership will step up — when elephants fly.
Has anyone checked whether the White House has the authority in the bill to delay implementation?
Yes. Ace of Spades quotes a Forbes article by Avik Roy:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/341386.php
“Does Obama have the legal authority to delay the mandate?
“The Affordable Care Act is quite clear as to the effective date of the employer mandate. “The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013,” concludes Section 1513.
“The executive branch is charged with enforcing the law, and it can of course choose not to enforce the law if it wants. But people can sue the federal government, and a judge could theoretically force the administration to enforce the mandate.”
I haven’t read Avik Roy’s article, but Ace has the link if you want to read it for yourself.
Ace has another relevant post of his own at the following link:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/341384.php
The Administration could pretend that the mandate won’t be enforced, and just retroactively fine the employers not complying.
Follow-up note to my earlier response:
Patterico quotes a source (Bloomberg) that doesn’t seem to agree with Ace’s source (Forbes):
http://patterico.com/2013/07/02/obamacare-employer-mandate-suspended-until-2015/
“The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allows the Obama administration to set the starting date for the employer coverage reporting requirement that’s the linchpin of the mandate. The administration had not yet announced a date, one of the officials said. Still, enforcement of the mandate had been widely expected to begin in 2014, the official said.”
So I guess the answer to your question is yes, people are checking to see if the White House has the authority in the bill to delay implementation, but different people are coming up with quite different answers. I feel SO much better informed now, don’t you?
He obviously doesn’t care about anything so trivial as legal authority. Has anyone ever held him to account for his illegal and unconstitutional actions?
Your comment should be in bold with flashing lights.
If it is okay for the State of California to ignore Prop 8, and it is okay for Obama to delay the mandate on Obamacare…couldn’t a new President just refuse to implement Obama care and let it go into a state of hibernation until a GOP majority in the Senate, House and WH can permanently put it down?
Just askin?
Less than a month ago the Deemocrats strategy for the 2014 midterm elections was “Own Obamacare” as this Politico article states: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/dems-2014-strategy-own-obamacare-92172.html. How are they going to own it now that they’re afraid to enact it. And I would love to know how the Obama Admin can just delay portions of the law from taking effect. I guess Dems don’t need no stinking laws. Just like before the the presidential election Obama decides he’ll no longer enforce immigration laws, or make recess appointments when Congress isn’t in recess. While Obama is in Africa he should give some of their dictators lessons on how to be one.
☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆
I’m SHOCKED ⊙ω⊙ I tell you ⊙ω⊙ SHOCKED
Who’d have believed the bill of Champagne Toasts and Democrat Dreams would turn out to be a trainwreck?
Are those stars and dots what Biden sees when Obama lets him have ice cream?
Let’s not get too happy to see them squirming over the train wreck. Remember that the secret plan was always to enact an unworkable system. Obamacare is merely a stepping stone to a single-payer system, an all government plan. The trick for us will be to take over the transition stage, that is, to make sure the solution offered up for the train wreck is a free-market system rather than a socialist system. I don’t believe the Republicans in the House and Senate understand this, nor will they have the interest or the guts to fight back against Obama and the powerful left’s determination to achieve the long-term goal. There is much worse to come.
Good point. Let’s hope this Kamakazi mission crashes before it hits its real target.
Do I under stand this right?
That a law crafted deliberately, with malice aforethought, so that a subsequent Republican president couldn’t undo or prevent any of the damage to be inflicted; can be modified or delayed indefinitely by a president with a “D” after his (or her) name, without any Congressional action?
They will enforce it against, and only against, the Unpeople of Jesusland, who they hate. Just watch.
Health insurance is not health care, PERIOD! Perhaps if the liberal fucktards were hit in the face with a ball peen hammer every time they attempted to equivocate the two we would not be in this mess.
Why can’t the House simply refuse to fund O’bammyCare?
Let it die on the vine..
No courage, no integrity, lack of convictions, corruption, fear of political retribution, especially after Amnesty takes effect.
I attribute the start of this mess to FDR having wage freeze. Employers turned to benefits and voila we have employer funded health care. Of course many states have loaded health insurance with health insurance, so everybody pays for mammograms. Government interference leads to bigger messes.
Separate health insurance from employee compensation. Require patients to pay, or make arrangements for payment at the doctor’s office. Patients are paid from their insurance companies. Having patients out of the payment loop leads to excesses.
The concept of ‘Third Party Pay’ (TPP) is a villain with many faces. Even the worthy and noble ‘GI Bill’ became the fore-bearer of the ‘educational grant’, and so on and so forth…
Did this seemingly endless pile of money streaming into university/higher education system make things better? Hardly… the TTP system has lead to massive, unchecked inflation of tuition, and the rise nonsensical study/degree programs that could never exist in a pre-GI Bill education system.
Past is prologue… even the HMO system, one the many ‘brilliant’ ideas of Sen. Kennedy became a Trojan Horse, forcing health care insurers to cover AIDS carriers. The costs incurred from their inclusion were distributed to the relatively healthy members of the HMOs… and so on.
TTP has become the vehicle to force elements into a free market system that would never fly, let alone survive, without the fist of government to make it so. ‘Mandates’ and imaginary ‘rights’ all crashed into us via the TTP doorway.
The ‘single pay’ health care system is endgame evolution of TTP… there will be no ‘market forces’, only the naked, unrestrained power of bureaucrats, and the political class that feeds, and protects them.
He kicks everything past the next election. His attitude: let the next guy/gal worry about it, I’ll be on the international speaking circuit.
As nefarious as this admin has been, I pondered if this was a back-handed early endorsement of Howard Dean for 2016. Dean hated it, Hillary loved it, and Valerie Jarrett may have decided it is not too early to poke HillBill in the eye.
Wow, I see my congressman, Kenny Marchant, knows how to use Twitter.
And, he is right, Obamacare is going to be a trainwreck.
Obama didn’t pull it for fear of what might happen to Democrats in the midterms. Despite the rebuke of 2010, he remains a supremely, arrogantly confident narcissist who truly believes he can bring the voters around again by the power of his personality. Instead of playing “Hail to the Chief” when he enters the room, they should try this: http://youtu.be/L7BQRGXFLJs
No, the ONLY reason Obama would agree not to go full steam ahead is that they just can’t get it done. It’s too much for the apparatchiks to manage. 1/6 of the US economy takes more than some goals and slogans to run, it turns out.
He’s waiting until Shamnesty and maybe a Warmal Colding Carbon Tax take effect, to implement mandatory submission of your very body and life to the whims and wiles of the IRS/Federal Government.
I woke suddenly this morning with the thought of my granddaughter being taken from her parents and put into government boarding school because her parents were teaching her the truth about life, faith and liberty that did not agree with the PC mandated ideology.
They can deny you surgery and medicine or take your children just as easily as they can target your group and deny you non-profit status.
The silent genocide of dissenters is just another form of abortion/termination to them.
That’s why Barry and Hilly, King and Queen of Planned Parenthood, could just go to bed the night Americans were being targeted and terminated in Benghazi.
Obamacare is the unstoppable train wreck that most of us want to uncouple from our lives. Middle America & small business is forced to be connected to this runaway train. And, we were told that we had to pass the train wreck before we knew it was a wreck.
What Washington doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know: most businesses want to succeed. And to do so they need a valued product or service and a loyal employee base to provide such goods and services. Unions, btw, are the opposite of such dynamics. Unions are “me” first and then maybe we’ll get around to the customer.
Most business owners, whether small or large, desire to provide health & dental insurance coverage along w/401ks, tuition reimbursement and other bennies) for their employees. Employer offered benefits are part of the community building process that businesses use to foster employee loyalty. You’ll often find ‘employee welfare’ defined within a business’ mission statement coupled with the company’s commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.
As a business partner in a small to mid-size company for many years, I can tell you that as sales increased so did the number of employees. And because we were competing with other companies for ‘good’ employees we decided to offer more and more benefits to entice the right people to come on board and to stay on board. We were not a union shop and Obamacare was filling its diaper in Hawaii.
Good ‘things’ happened in our company because of the simple dynamics of business, entrepreneurship, free will and the free market. Employees flock to well-managed companies that take of its people. We didn’t need Obamacare to mandate what most of knew already. Washington and the ivory tower elite are way out of touch with America.
BTW: as our business grew, we were able to give to those causes that needed money. You can not give what you do not have.
But, now we have the out-of-control Obamacare freight train that desperately wants to change tracks and its image – into a single payer freight train, one that uses a cow-catcher to push you the ‘little’ guy out of the way so as to keep barreling along, your dollars fueling our advanced ‘society’. No wonder there is so much talk about high-speed rail.
For some, like me, the damage has already been done. I am an adjunct faculty member and my hours have been cut for the fall semester to the point that I will not have the service credit to qualify for a Medicare supplement plan when I retire in a year. If my eyes hold out I may be able to work an additional year. Well, Obama doesn’t need to worry about losing my vote. I haven’t voted for a democrat since the 70s.
Here is one comprehensive list of Obama’s violations of US Constitution, Bill of Rights and usurpations of power.
Here is a book listing and explaining, 150 Reasons why Obama is the absolute worst POTUS ever.
Of course there are more than those listed, and <a href="like the 21,169 Islamic jihad attacks published in the news, not counting wars, with innumerable deaths and horrific injuries and the rapes, human rights abuses, political genocides and persecutions of Islam, Obama’s compilation of abuses is growing rapidly and daily.
Jihad attacks listed here: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Sorry to have messed up the link. Thought I had checked it…
Oh for an edit button.
This can’t be legal but as the Forbes article further points out:
“Does Obama have the legal authority to delay the mandate?
The Affordable Care Act is quite clear as to the effective date of the employer mandate. “The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013,” concludes Section 1513.
The executive branch is charged with enforcing the law, and it can of course choose not to enforce the law if it wants. But people can sue the federal government, and a judge could theoretically force the administration to enforce the mandate.
So the question is: Would anyone sue the Obama administration over this? Employers, of course, will be thrilled to be spared the mandate for one more year. Democratic politicians, similarly, will be glad to have this not hanging over their heads for the 2014 mid-term election.
The wild-card is left-wing activists. Most, you’d think, would defer to the administration on questions of implementation. I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that all it would take is for one judge to issue an injunction, for an activist to require the administration to enforce the mandate.”
Worse yet, claim that it is not going into effect yet, then fine those businesses not in compliance after the election as the statute of limitations had not expired.
That’s what you get when you “pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”
Obamacare is, in my opinion, one of the worst attacks against democracy and against the integrity of the legislative process.
“We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-05TLiiLU
It keeps pounding the inside of my head. Can’t get rid of it.
How on earth do you vote FOR a bill if you don’t even know what’s in it?
Eh !
Watsa Problem ?
If ya wanna have healt care, or ya doan wanna have ya woik hours cut …. no problem.
Ya just file IRS Form 1784-A15. Dat makes ya an Illegal Alien right away. Den, youse don’t count as an employee, even though you woiks dere.
Glad ta help youse out, dere.
Another service of the Chicago Mobocaracy
TTT (Tangential to topic): Keep an eye on Hillary. If she intends to run in 2016, she’ll use this employer mandate delay to start putting distance between herself and Obama.
How is this legal?
Don’t you love the way that this Administration decides by itself what parts of what laws it will abide by and what parts it will ignore or delay?
I’d like to see this law enforced on the timetable defined by the law. Period. First, because it’s a law, and second, because the Democrats richly deserve to have the waste sea of unemployed march of Washington with tar and feathers.
US Supreme Court ruled that the mandate is a tax not a penalty. It doesn’t matter if Obama believes it’s a penalty the court claimed it passed constitutional muster as a TAX! How is it possible for the president to waive a tax or order the IRS to waive it. Are we not a nation of laws? Congress passed this monstrosity and Obama signed it to law, that means it is the law of the land! Look how far this man has taken us. King Barack the biggest dictator the African continent has ever seen exported to our shores. Stay in Africa you fit right in and take John Roberts with you!
[…] Mandy Nagy previously noted here, the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, will now be delayed […]