WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is delaying a central component of its new health-care plan by putting off for a year a requirement that businesses provide health insurance to their employees or face steep fines, the Treasury Department announced yesterday.
The so-called “employer mandate” will take effect in 2015 instead of 2014.
Companies with more than 50 employees must provide coverage for their workers under the 2009 law.
The unexpected delay gives the administration more time to draw up complex regulations and get past the 2014 elections, when many Democrats feared heat from business owners upset at the added financial burden.
“As we make these changes, we believe we need to give employers more time to comply with the new rules,” Valerie Jarrett, who handles outreach to business leaders, wrote on the White House blog.
Treasury official Mark Mazur, in another blog post, wrote, “We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively.”
Business groups had been lobbying hard for the change to what the administration calls “responsibility payments.”
The move will likely leave many Americans without health insurance, but they will be able to purchase coverage on their own through health exchanges that the government is set to open starting in October.