The employer mandate, a key provision of the Affordable Care Act (known both lovingly and deprecatingly as Obamacare), will not take effect until 2015, Bloomberg reports:
Businesses won’t be penalized next year if they don’t provide workers health insurance after the Obama administration decided to delay a key requirement under its health-care law, two administration officials said.
The decision will come in regulatory guidance to be issued later this week. It addresses vehement complaints from employer groups about the administrative burden of reporting requirements, though it may also affect coverage provided to some workers.
The two officials, who asked not to be identified to discuss the move ahead of its announcement, said the administration decided to wait until 2015 before enforcing the employer mandate in order to simplify reporting requirements and give businesses more time to adapt their health-care coverage.
Though contentious, the employer mandate is not the heart of the law: That would be the individual mandate, which was upheld by the Supreme Court last year. That mandate—John Roberts would prefer you call it a tax—is still set to take effect in 2014.
