The Obama administration announced that the employer mandate aspect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will be delayed by one year to 2015.
This mandate requires businesses with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance coverage to employees, or pay a penalty. As a result, the administration will start enforcing the mandate in 2015, rather than January 1, 2014, in an effort to give businesses more time to prepare.
There will be additional changes tied to this delay, and the administration has stated that they will provide formal guidance within this week.
The California Insurance Department does not foresee major consequences for the delay of the mandate while implementing the California State exchange by this year.
The mandate of the penalty for individual insurance is still in place for 2014. ( $ 95 per year per person in 2014) . Therefore even more individual will seek coverage in the individual state exchange Covered California, as less employers will offer group health insurance.
For example many employers who have over 50 employees, such as restaurants and carwashes will sent their employees to Covered California as they will there be able to get health insurance and possible, due to their low income, state subsidies. The penalty for 2014 employers, due to the most recent mandate delay will not be enforced on such businesses.