The Obama Administration recently announced that it is delaying until 2015 the requirement that businesses with more than 50 employees provide health insurance to their workers or pay a penalty. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Act”) requires certain employers and insurers to submit healthcare coverage reports to the federal government beginning in 2014, but the Administration has delayed the Act’s reporting requirements until 2015. Because the Act’s information reporting has been delayed, the Administration has recognized the impracticality of determining which employers owe shared responsibility payments for 2014 and, accordingly, is delaying such payments until 2015. The delay does not change the Act’s individual mandate requirement of most Americans to purchase health insurance. Additional guidance on the Act’s reporting requirements will be issued in the near future.
