Employers Required to Boost ObamaCare
Despite the much ballyhooed claim that the Obama administration will not enforce employer reporting requirements for another year, Department of Labor regulations still require employers to do free marketing for the health exchanges by October 1, 2013. News reports originally said that employers![us-department-of-labor-logo[1]](http://healthblog.ncpathinktank.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/us-department-of-labor-logo1.jpg){kind=logo}
who failed to comply would face fines of $100 per employee per day. But for now they have been stayed by a “Frequently Asked Questions” post on the Department of Labor website.
According to Department of Labor Technical Release No. 2013-02, issued May 8, 2013, employees must inform full and part-time employees and subsequent new hires about the health exchanges. The notice may be in writing or electronic, provided the electronic notice meets Department of Labor safe harbor requirements. The model notice for employers who do not provide health coverage is here. The model notice for employers who do offer health coverage is here. Updated COBRA notices are also required.
The requirement even applies to employers who are not required to offer health insurance because they have fewer than 50 employees. In general, any employer of one or more people that participates in interstate commerce and has annual revenues of $500,000 must comply. It also applies to any business providing resident care for the sick, the aged, the mentally ill, or the disabled, most schools both public and private, and institutions of higher education.
The elimination of potential fines joins the employer reporting mandate in the group of ObamaCare regulatory modifications that have been randomly announced in obscure corners of departmental web sites. Coupled with the administration’s willingness to rely on the honor system for granting subsidies through the health benefits exchanges, state run or not, it is clear that Nancy Pelosi was wrong. Even though we have passed ObamaCare, this administration’s penchant for running it by blog post and FAQ virtually ensures that we will never really know what is in it.
“Even though we have passed ObamaCare, this administration’s penchant for running it by blog post and FAQ virtually ensures that we will never really know what is in it.”
As if ObamaCare hasn’t created enough problems, uncertainty is a huge killer of growth.
Another leviathan destroying prosperity…
I don’t think they want us to know what’s in it.
Looks like they just want unlimited control, for our own good of course.
I’d like to know if there is anyone in the administration who could explain, clearly, exactly what is required under this law.
No, because they just sent it to the various people funding them and mashed it together in a giant law.
Exactly. I don’t think there is any one person controlling this thing, but that might be the point… They can do whatever they want now.
Two things are perennially true in law: laws with no teeth are not laws, and law without specification is anarchy.
The Administration has always had the tools to publicize itself, but this feels more like outright propaganda.
If these requirements aren’t there then employers will just keep things under wraps to save money rather than keeping their employees alive.
Then, who would work for them?
People who need money, who else? Conservatives always think that the market presents excellent choice in employment, but many people just take a job because they have to pay the bills.
Certainly you’ll find people that are willing to take those jobs, although at a higher wage than “safer” ones. Can you really say that they aren’t better off than they were before? People make decisions with the direct intention to better themselves (or more generally achieve some kind of utility), if you prevent them from that, then you are actually hurting them.
“People make decisions with the direct intention to better themselves (or more generally achieve some kind of utility), if you prevent them from that, then you are actually hurting them.”
Then why are y’all trying to stop them from being informed about healthcare and making better choices?
“any employer of one or more people that participates in interstate commerce”
There’s the rub. This really only affects larger businesses and e-commerce businesses. The mom-and-pop store will scoot by, but just barely.
That’s if the mom-and-pop stores are still around. Most have probably been taxed or over-regulated into oblivion. Corporations are the only safe way to conduct business now, and the liberals have their eyes on them too.
Corporations made it that way themselves. They need to be taken down or it will get to the point that not even the government can stop them, which is close to how things are now.
Guilds would be better. They unite classes rather than divide them, and provide for uniform pricing.
As interpreted by modern courts, the interstate commerce requirement is extremely elastic. It likely compels the vast majority of businesses to comply.
The model notice is a bit confusing: Some employees at the NCPA thought the notice meant we were dropping our group health insurance and dumping employees in the exchange!
Joe,
“A bit confusing” makes it a model of clarity. This IS ObamaCare that we are talking about, after all.