White House delays ACA’s employer-coverage mandate for one year

White House delays ACA’s employer-coverage mandate for one year

The Obama administration is delaying for one year the employer mandate requiring companies to offer their employees health insurance.

Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur posted a blog late Tuesday confirming that the 2014 mandate on employers with more than 51 full-time workers to offer qualifying health insurance coverage to their employees or face a penalty was being delayed until 2015.

The delay was meant to give time to simplify reporting requirements and to adapt health coverage and reporting systems, he wrote. It means that one of the key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is unpopular among many business groups, will not take effect until after the 2014 congressional elections.

Bloomberg News reports that the White House plans to invite employer groups to discuss ways of easing administrative burdens created by the mandate.

Here’s what Mazur’s memo says the one-year delay will accomplish:

“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. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. Just like the Administration’s effort to turn the initial 21-page application for health insurance into a three-page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.”