On July 3, 2013 Obama pushed the Employer Mandate launch date from January 1, 2014 to January 1, 2015. What does this mean for large businesses (businesses with 50 or more employees)? This means that large companies would not have to provide health care coverage to employees until January 1, 2015 (let me make this known here, by pushing the Employer Mandate, they took out approximately 21% of the full Healthcare Reform budget). How great is that for the large business you might say, it is a good break for them and gives the government time to make sure the Healthcare Reform is ready to go for the large business. Well some of that is right, the government will have more time to get things in a working order but my question for you is what happens to the employee now?
We are quickly becoming a nation where part time employment is more common then full time employment (please refer to my earlier post about “29ers” to see more detail on this). At the same time large businesses are not required to offer benefits, the individual employee is required to have healthcare coverage. This means that someone is still getting to get the short end of the straw.
I know some of you grew up with siblings and possibly some of you are older or the oldest. How many times did your younger sibling want to go out one night and your parents let them. That same night you wanted to go do something with your friends and your parents told you that you had to stay in for some reason or another. You never got it and probably still don’t understand why. You were forced to stay in and yet your younger, less responsible, out of control sibling could go out like they owned the town, makes no since. Well in both cases, sibling going out and healthcare reform, someone is getting the short end of the straw, if there was even a straw left to pull a short end.
In this case, there is no straw left for the individual to pull. They are stuck in the Healthcare reform system and for one year, must pay a tax for not having health care coverage or pay for high premium rates in Obamacare. Things may change tough on July 17, 2013 as congress is set to vote one more time (as if they haven’t voted enough) to delay the Individual Mandate. This will be a big day and a very critical vote. I will write about this when I know the outcome.
My question to leave you with for now is if the government can’t set up the Healthcare Reform right the first time for businesses or individuals to run smooth, then why set it up at all? “If you can’t do it right the first time then when will you have time to do it right the second time?” Unknown. Why we are pushing such big parts of the Healthcare Reform?
YouTube video talking about the vote to push Individual Mandate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5hjs-B06sA
Clark Benefits 