Administration Hits Pause On Health Exchanges For Small Businesses

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: NPR

The Obama administration is delaying the start of a key piece of the Affordable Care Act. Workers in small businesses will have to wait an additional year to be able to choose from more than one plan in the marketplaces that start next January.

The delay — first proposed in regulations issued last month and confirmed earlier this week — is the first acknowledgment by the administration that it won't be able to meet the tight timetable it has set to get these health exchanges up and running by October 1, when enrollment is set to begin.

The delay has disappointed some backers of the law.

"A major selling point of the small business exchange is that small business owners will be able to simply select a particular level of coverage that they want their employees to have, and then their employees will have the ability to choose from multiple plans within that level of coverage," says John Arensmeyer, CEO of the advocacy group Small Business Majority.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/03/176131602/administration-hits-pause-on-health-exchanges-for-small-businesses

[KoKo]

1. Quick Read..don't know what to make of this...Hopefully others will...n/t

[Hoyt]

2. The full article seems to indicate insurers can't meet original date. Guess a little competition

scares some of them. Good.

[Deep13]

3. A year?! This law was enacted in 2010...

....Most of the provisions have been delayed until 2014 anyway and how they want to wait an additional year to give small businesses some relief. Here's an idea: fuck the insurers and insist on the original date.

[quadrature]

4. tight timetable?

what planet do these people live on?


ACA was passed three years ago

[Flaxbee]

5. Unfortunately, I think this will be a trend -- nothing will be

implemented on time because of foot-dragging. What the tactic is most likely going to be is to foot-drag to 2016, then eliminate the ACA if an R is elected president.

[quadrature]

7. who is foot-dragging? .nt

nt

[allinthegame]

6. I thought

Small businesses were the backbone of the nation (Obama and John Boehner will tell you that at the drop of a dime) therefore it is a huge disappointment that this is the segment that will be pushed out of affordable insurance plans first. Aren't they the ones who need it the most?