A batch of employers won’t face a fine next year if they fail to provide health insurance to their workers, the Obama administration said Monday.
In regulations outlining the Affordable Care Act, the Treasury Department said employers with between 50 and 99 full-time workers won’t have to comply with the law’s requirement to provide insurance or pay a fee until 2016.
Companies with 100 workers or more could avoid penalties in 2015 if they showed they were offering coverage to at least 70 percent of their full-time workers, the Treasury said.
The move is a new, significant revision of the law after a series of delays and a troubled rollout. Originally, employers with the equivalent of 50 full-time workers or more had to offer coverage or pay a penalty starting at $2,000 per worker beginning in 2014.
That so-called employer mandate was seen as a cornerstone provision in the law’s goal of expanding insurance coverage to millions of Americans this year. But last summer the administration announced a surprise one-year reprieve in enforcement of the requirement, from 2014 to 2015.
Monday’s announcement of further delays comes as the administration weighs how much of the law to adjust in the wake of the rollout and the looming prospect of midterm elections.
Read the full WSJ article at Obama Delays Health-Insurance Mandate for Some Firms