Employer mandate postponed for Obamacare

Employer mandate delayed

The Obama Administration announced this week they would delay the employer mandate. Unfortunately, the employer mandate was an incredibly important part of Obamacare. Without the employer mandate, which penalized companies who did not provide healthcare if they had more than 50 employees, we now have an incentive for employers to dump health coverage and force their employees onto healthcare exchanges. This move will shift the burden away from companies and on to the backs of American workers.

We are also seeing the downside of the employer mandate. The employee mandate would have forced large employers not offering health insurance coverage to pay a penalty of $2,000 per uncovered full-time employee. Employees are handling that problem just fine. Now they are simply not hiring workers and limiting their workers to part-time employment- problem solved.

The only upside to moving the burden of insurance to taxpayers and not businesses is it may allow Americans, voluntarily or involuntarily, to became disentangled from employer-based insurance. Over time this could help employees who want to move between jobs but cannot do so because they dont want to lose their insurance, and it may allow businesses to get back to the job of creating jobs. Unfortunately, we might also see the health care exchanges become the dominant venue for getting insurance and no one is quite sure about the efficiency of that process.

Can Obama postpone employer mandate?

Another broader question is whether the Obama administration has the unilateral authority to nullify a Congressional statute. According to the Affordable Care Act, the effective date of the employer mandate is clearly stated: The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013, concludes Section 1513.

Given that the executive branch is charged with enforcing the law, its not clear why the Obama administration believes they do not have to enforce the mandate, although there is no one likely to contest this fact. Democrat politicians are glad to be spared this unpopular provision given that many are up for re-election in the 2014 mid-term elections, and businesses arent going to complain either.

Obama overpromises with Obamacare

What many people are now realizing is that while President Obama promised perfection when it came to the Affordable Care Act- better and more insurance coverage, lower premiums and maintaining your current health care plan- its now time to admit that some workers are not going to keep their health care plan, even if they like it. Critics of the plan were right. We are likely to see many employers dump their plans, premiums skyrocket and many health insurers stop selling in certain states.

Republicans want to repeal Obamacare

While the goal of Republicans to repeal Obamacare may be far-fetched, its also unrealistic for Democrats to expect Republicans to help with eliminating problems with the implementation. Republicans remember how the law was crafted. Democrats didnt want their help then and they didnt need it. Democrats had a supermajority in the Senate and an outright majority in the House.

Democrats didnt want to include Republicans in the legislative process. Instead they worked with the health care industry to create the legislation and then passed it without any GOP support in the Senate. All the while Republicans were giving the administration warnings that Obamas promises couldnt possibly be true.

Republicans hate to be the party of I told you so. But guess what? They told you so.