Opinion: Another Day, Another ObamaCare Delay - WSJ 03/06/2014

ACA: Another Day, Another Delay. Employer Mandate Delayed for Employers With 50 to 99 Full-time Workers.

“Most employers won't face a fine next year if they fail to offer workers health insurance, the Obama administration said Monday, in the latest big delay of the health-law rollout.

The Treasury Department, in regulations outlining the Affordable Care Act, said employers with 50 to 99 full-time workers won't have to comply with the law's requirement to provide insurance or pay a fee until 2016. Companies with more workers could avoid some penalties in 2015 if they showed they were offering coverage to at least 70% of full-time workers.

The move came after employers pressured the Obama administration to peel back the law's insurance requirements. Some firms had trimmed workers' hours to below 30 hours a week to avoid paying a penalty if they didn't offer insurance.

A senior administration official said the shift was a response to businesses' concerns, though the official said no one reason was behind the change.

Under the original 2010 health law, employers with the equivalent of at least 50 full-time workers had to offer coverage or pay a penalty starting at $2,000 a worker beginning in 2014. Last year, the administration delayed the requirement for the first time by moving it to 2015.

The new rules for companies with 50 to 99 workers would cover about 2% of all U.S. businesses, which include 7% of workers, or 7.9 million people, according to 2011 Census figures compiled by the Small Business Administration. The rules for companies with 100 or more workers affect another 2% of businesses, which employ more than 74 million people.”

“The new regulations are likely to help employers who currently don't provide health coverage to certain employee groups by allowing them to temporarily continue that practice for at least some workers, said Paul Hamburger, a health-care attorney at Proskauer Rose in Washington.

But employers remain subject to a $3,000 penalty each time one of those workers buys coverage on a state health-care exchange and qualifies for subsidized premiums, he said, after a preliminary review of the new regulations.” - Health-Law Mandate Put Off Again, WSJ, 02/11/2014

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304558804579375213074082656?mod=ITP_pageone_0



Related:

Obama Rewrites ObamaCare. Another day, another lawless exemption, once again for business, WSJ, 02/11/2014


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303650204579375310934336066?mod=trending_now_1

Obama validates the conservative case against the employer mandate, AEI, 02/11/2014



http://www.aei-ideas.org/2014/02/obama-validates-the-conservative-case-against-the-employer-mandate/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+aei-ideas%2Fposts+%28AEIdeas+Posts%29

Online Small Business Marketplace: Delayed in April, Delayed in September, Now Shelved Until November 2014

‘The Obama administration announced Wednesday it would delay a significant piece of the health-care law: the online small business insurance marketplace.

The Small Business Health Options Program, known as the SHOP exchange, will not offer online enrollment until November 2014, a one-year delay from a launch that was initially planned for this past October.

Administration officials characterized the decision as one made necessary as they prioritized fixes to the individual health exchange, which the White House has promised will "work smoothly for the vast majority of users" by Dec. 1.’

‘The federal delay effects the 36 states where the federal government is running the health insurance exchange. It does not change the small business options in the 14 states and the District of Columbia that are running their own exchanges.

The White House announced last April a one-year delay to the "consumer choice" function in the SHOP exchange, which would allow each employee to pick their own insurance plan, pushing that functionality back until the 2015 open enrollment season.

That delay was followed with another setback in September when the White House announced that online shopping in the small business exchange would not be available when open enrollment started in October.
Under the new Obama administration proposal, small businesses will now have to "go directly to an agent, broker or to an insurance company with plans certified by the Marketplace," the Q&A document states. "The insurer must agree to offer direct enrollment in SHOP coverage and to conduct enrollment according to HHS requirements." ‘ - Obamacare’s online SHOP enrollment delayed by one year, 11/27/2013, Washington Post

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/27/obamacares-online-exchange-for-small-businesses-is-delayed-by-one-year/



Related story: Small business Obamacare online enrollment delayed a year, Politico, 11/27/2013

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/online-shop-enrollment-delayed-by-one-year-100438.html







　
　

ACA Web Based Application Becomes the Old School Paper Application. No Way! Way!

“Up first, the law's administrators are resorting to an anachronism, paper applications, in a desperate attempt to enroll consumers. Obamacare's exchanges were breathlessly billed as -- ahem, "simple and user-friendly" -- Travelocity-style websites for healthcare. Amid the endless shinola-storm of glitches and technical meltdowns, here we stand:


The dead-tree version of health insurance enrollment is turning out to be surprisingly popular. Unable to use new government insurance Web sites that have been plagued by technological problems, those tasked with helping the uninsured sign up for health coverage are bypassing the sites altogether, relying instead on old-fashioned paper applications. It is a slow and labor-intensive substitute for what was supposed to be a snappy online application, similar to Amazon or Travelocity. But faced with a flood of people eager to get health benefits for the first time, what had been considered Plan B has become the plan — at least until the sites are operating more reliably, according to consumer guides and community groups. It is one way the frustrating, persistent glitches on some state Web sites as well as the main federal portal serving 36 states have had a ripple effect around the country.

Er, the only reason old-fashioned paper is "surprisingly popular" is because the entire web system, which the government had three-plus years to prepare, is hopelessly broken. The Post story goes on to reveal that those who "sign up" the old-school way...aren't actually enrolled. I'll let Allahpundit explain why:

"Solution” suggests that people are now being successfully enrolled via paper applications. Not so. Turns out that the info on those applications needs to be input into the same wheezing, error-riddled computer system that’s forced website users into using paper in the first place. The “solution,” in other words, is simply to create a paper backlog that will need to be manually entered into the ObamaCare database by the insurance companies themselves if/when the system ever becomes stable enough to let them do that.“ - Trainwreck: Obamacare Officials Now Resorting to Paper Applications As New Flaws Emerge, Townhall.com, 10/14/2013


　Link to the entire article appears below:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/10/14/trainwreck-obamacare-officials-now-resorting-to-paper-applications-new-flaws-emerge-n1723509?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

Another Day, Another Delay: Obamacare Delays Out-of-Pocket Caps.

“WASHINGTON — In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care.

The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014.

The grace period has been outlined on the Labor Department’s Web site since February, but was obscured in a maze of legal and bureaucratic language that went largely unnoticed. When asked in recent days about the language — which appeared as an answer to one of 137 “frequently asked questions about Affordable Care Act implementation” — department officials confirmed the policy.

The discovery is likely to fuel continuing Republican efforts this fall to discredit the president’s health care law.

Under the policy, many group health plans will be able to maintain separate out-of-pocket limits for benefits in 2014. As a result, a consumer may be required to pay $6,350 for doctors’ services and hospital care, and an additional $6,350 for prescription drugs under a plan administered by a pharmacy benefit manager.

Some consumers may have to pay even more, as some group health plans will not be required to impose any limit on a patient’s out-of-pocket costs for drugs next year. If a drug plan does not currently have a limit on out-of-pocket costs, it will not have to impose one for 2014, federal officials said Monday.” - A Limit on Consumer Costs Is Delayed in Health Care Law, NYT, 08/12/2013

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/us/a-limit-on-consumer-costs-is-delayed-in-health-care-law.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=3&pagewanted=all&