- Tue Jul 02, 2013 3:55 pm
#26566
Obamacare's employer mandate, which would require businesses with 50 or more employees to provide employees with government-approved health insurance or pay big fines, was supposed to take effect on January 1, 2014. But Bloomberg reports the deadline for the employer mandate has been pushed back one year:
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.
Jeff Vernon, an employee of Scrambler Marie’s restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, told a local reporter that the owners were cutting his hours to avoid penalties under Obamacare. Businesses with more than 49 employees have to offer insurance to all “full-time” workers—defined as those who put in 30 hours or more each week. The result, for Vernon: $400 less in take-home pay every month. “That leaves me $27.50 for two weeks to live off of,” he explained. Vernon said the owners tried to avoid the cuts but didn’t have any other recourse. “They were real good about that,” he added. “The last thing they wanted to do was cut people. They don’t want to fire anybody.”
Other business owners haven’t been able to avoid eliminating jobs. A Gallup poll taken in June found that nearly one in five small businesses—19 percent of those surveyed—have cut workers “as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act.” The same poll, first reported by CNBC, found that 41 percent of those interviewed had suspended hiring because of Obamacare. The poll of 603 business owners with less than $20 million in annual sales also found that 55 percent believe Obamacare will lead to higher health care costs, while just 5 percent saw future cost savings.
Had this provision of Obamacare taken place as scheduled, voters would have seen the devastating results to the economy and number of people losing their healthcare right before the elections. Pelosi and Reid applauded the delay but declined to respond to questions as to why it was necessary.
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