The White House has now put off employer fines until 2016 after continued rollout struggles.
According to the latest large delay issued by the Obama administration for the health care reform, the majority of employers will still not face a fine next year if they do not offer insurance benefits to their employees, yet.
The timing of the implementation of this element of the health insurance law has now been pushed back.
According to the Affordable Care Act’s regulations, the Treasury Department has stated that businesses that have between 50 and 99 full time employees will not be required to comply with the mandate of the health care reform that would insist that they provide insurance. After the new date, if they fail to offer this coverage to their workers, they will be required to pay a fee.
Companies with a larger number of workers are also able to avoid some health care reform penalties.
If they have more than 99 full time workers and they can show that they have offered coverage to at least 70 percent of them in 2015, then they will be able to avoid paying some penalties.
The decision to change the timing of the law’s implementation was made by the Obama administration as they faced pressure from employers to change or soften the insurance law requirements. There had been a growing trend of employers cutting back the hours of their employees so that they were below 30 per week (thereby converting their workers into part time employees) so that they would be able to avoid having to pay a fee for failing to offer coverage.
One of the administration’s senior officials explained that they had heard the businesses’ concerns and were providing their response with the latest delay. That said, the official pointed out that there were several reasons that the change occurred and not a single cause.
The 2010 health care reform law originally stated that employers that have a minimum of 50 full time employees would need to offer those workers coverage starting in 2014 or they would face a fee that starts at $2,000 and rises from there. This mandate was delayed last year, bringing it to 2015, but now the rules have been changed again to push it to 2016.
