Barack Obama et. al. - not my favorite liberals.

From Daily Kos

(Obama selling out to business again as the worker gets screwed)

Administration delays implementation of employer mandate under Obamacare until 2015

The Obama administration has decided to put off implementation of the Affordable Care Act's employer responsibility requirement for one year, according to a blog post from Mark J. Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively.  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.  We have listened to your feedback.  And we are taking action.

The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin.  This is designed to meet two goals.  First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law.  Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees.

The 2010 law requires that companies with 50 or more full-time employees provide health insurance for those employees or pay fines. There's been significant pushback from companies at the 50-employee threshold, threatening to reduce their number of employees or cut their hours so they wouldn't qualify as part-time. For the most part, this change won't complicate implementation of other parts of Obamacare, though officials might have more of a challenge determining who is eligible for subsidies because of their employer benefits status.

The decision does, however, effect the bottom line, as Igor Volsky points out, because the CBO estimated that the employer mandate would raise about $4 billion in 2014. "The delay will mean that the federal government will lose out on that revenue and that some employees who are not eligible for tax credits in the exchanges and don't have an offer of employer coverage or can't afford that insurance, could go uninsured.