WASHINGTON – The two-year delay in requiring large businesses to provide insurance coverage for all employees likely will have little effect because most large companies already provide coverage, a health care expert said Wednesday.
The Treasury Department said Tuesday that the delay until 2015 was needed to find a way to simplify the new reporting regulations.
“We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The employer mandate fines big businesses – 50 or more employees – up to $2,000 per employee if they do not provide coverage.
“Virtually all [big businesses] offer coverage,” according to Gary Claxton, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “This really doesn’t have that big of an impact.”
He said about 95 percent of big businesses offer coverage.
But House Speaker John Boehner immediately criticized the announcement as evidence that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed.
“This announcement means even the Obama administration knows the ‘train wreck’ will only get worse,” Boehner said in a statement. “I hope the administration recognizes the need to release American families from the mandates of this law as well. This is a clear acknowledgment that the law is unworkable, and it underscores the need to repeal the law and replace it with effective, patient-centered reforms.”
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue supported the delay to give companies time to avoid serious financial costs but criticized the health care law as detrimental to the economy.
“Since the beginning of the health reform debate the U.S. Chamber has consistently stated the employer mandate and other burdensome provisions of Obamacare would be harmful to job creation and economic growth,” Donohue said in a statement. “The administration’s decision to recognize this fact yesterday and delay the implementation of the employer mandate is welcomed by the business community and will help avoid some serious near-term economic consequences of this law.”
Claxton was not surprised at the criticism, saying that the health care law will spark controversy with every decision.
“I think this is a law where every bit of it’s been praised or criticized,” Claxton said. “There’s not a lot of neutrality out there in the world.”