This is now confirmed by both the Washington Post and the New York Times:
More analysis, later this evening; I must bounce, now.
. . . .The Obama administration will not penalize businesses that do not provide health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced Tuesday.
Instead, it will delay enforcement of a major Affordable Care Act requirement -- that all employers with more than 50 employees provide coverage to their workers until 2015. . . .
“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 Affordable Care Act requires all employers with more than 50 full-time workers provide health insurance or pay fines. . . .
Stay tuned.
4 comments:
Thanks for the hot tip, Condor. I haven't read the source stories as yet but I'm interested to get into the nitty gritty of whether the fines for part time workers who exceed the 30 hours per week are also delayed. Retail clients of mine have hired hundreds of extra part time workers, trained their management to not schedule more than 25 hours/week and programmed their workforce management software to send a variety of warnings when staff clocks more than the 25 hours scheduled.
This 25/30 hour shuffle hurts employees who have to work even more multiple jobs to earn (barely) a living, it's bad for the companies who have to train/track/manage too many employees and it's bad for customers served by people who work 2, sometimes 3 different jobs in a day.
Sorry to rant but the ripple effects of the Administration's start/stop on this program are beyond frustrating.
Hey Anon. -- I hear you. More than anything, the lack of clarity makes business planning difficult -- if not nearly impossible.
For its part, the US Treasury blog (the source document for the extension to 2015) says that within a week, transition guidelines on all of this will be out:
. . . .Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. . . .
[W]e are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.
Here is some additional detail.
The ACA includes information reporting (under section 6055) by insurers, self-insuring employers, and other parties that provide health coverage. It also requires information reporting (under section 6056) by certain employers with respect to the health coverage offered to their full-time employees.
We expect to publish proposed rules implementing these provisions this summer, after a dialogue with stakeholders - including those responsible employers that already provide their full-time work force with coverage far exceeding the minimum employer shared responsibility requirements - in an effort to minimize the reporting, consistent with effective implementation of the law.
Once these rules have been issued, the Administration will work with employers, insurers, and other reporting entities to strongly encourage them to voluntarily implement this information reporting in 2014, in preparation for the full application of the provisions in 2015. Real-world testing of reporting systems in 2014 will contribute to a smoother transition to full implementation in 2015. . . .
So -- in short -- we are all in for more waiting here -- until clear rules on the current 25/30 hour a week "Catch 22" ambiguity are provided.
The link to today's Treasury.gov blog post is here.
Namaste
Thanks for the follow up, Condor! As I woke this morning on the west coast my email box was crammed with questions from clients on the east about when they could relax some of the workforce management programming we literally put in place just last quarter. I would expect a cut in part time workers, while individual worker hours rise if the 30 hour provision is also suspended. If this plays out, sadly, those effected will likely not qualify for unemployment aid due to the low amount of hours worked at this mish-mash of part time jobs. We shall see.
Post a Comment