Health Care Law's Employer Mandate Delayed Until January 2015 - 0 views
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The Obama administration caught the U.S. business community by surprise when it announced a one-year delay, until Jan. 1, 2015, in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) mandate that employers with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees provide health care coverage to their full-time employees (those working on average 30 or more hours per week) or pay steep penalties.
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However, “Many ACA provisions are unaffected by the delay, and employers must continue to implement and comply with them
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“New individual and group health plan requirements taking effect for 2014 plan years include a ban on annual dollar limits on essential health benefits, a 90-day limit on eligibility waiting periods, new out-of-pocket limit maximums, the elimination of preexisting conditions exclusions for adults, and coverage of clinical trial participant costs.”
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Also remaining in place, for instance, are the reform act's requirement that most employer-provided health care include coverage for recommended preventive care—including contraceptive services for women with no cost-sharing
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A critical view of health care reform was reiterated by the National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business lobby long opposed to the reform act. “Temporary relief is small consolation; we need a permanent fix to this provision to provide long-term relief for small employers,”
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This article deals with the recent announcement (although in the view of many an illegal announcement) of the Obama administrations one year delay in the employer mandate until January 1, 2015. This announcement leaves still leaves in place the individual mandate. The reason for the delay was to provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees. However, there are many points in the ACA that will still go into effect as listed in the highlighted sections of this article. Several business groups are commenting on the delay and providing further direction such as the United Benefit Advisors. The UBA group has posted a listing on what actually has been delayed and what remains a requirement. All groups agree that the added time will give business some breathing room while companies continue to decipher the actual effects and requirements of the ACA. Either way now that the bill is passed and signed into law one thing is for certain, the smoke has cleared and none or the promises made by the administration of what the bill would do are true.