Good-Bye, Employer Mandate?

Posted on | July 6, 2014 | 27 Comments

Robert Gibbs’ prediction that Obamacare’s employer mandate would — and perhaps should — be jettisoned shocked Democrats back in April.
By July, the former aide and longtime confidant of President Barack Obama had a lot more company. More and more liberal activists and policy experts who help shape Democratic thinking on health care have concluded that penalizing businesses if they don’t offer health insurance is an unnecessary element of the Affordable Care Act that may do more harm than good. Among them are experts at the Urban Institute and the Commonwealth Fund and prominent academics like legal scholar Tim Jost. . . .
Leading Democrats in Congress aren’t bolting from the employer mandate, at least not before the November election. But the White House has delayed it twice in the past year, dubbed it “not critical” and said it will be phased in more slowly when its begins next year.
The rule that businesses with more than 50 full-time workers offer them affordable health insurance has been a political headache from the start. . . .

You can read the whole thing. Describing the mandate as a “political headache” is a way to avoid calling it a policy disaster. And without the employer mandate, exactly what would remain of ObamaCare, except Medicare expansion and state “exchanges”?

Zombie ObamaCare: It’s Dead, but It Can Never Be Killed.

Category: Health Care

Comments

27 Responses to “Good-Bye, Employer Mandate?”

Federale
July 6th, 2014 @ 11:52 am

Clearly, the Demoncrats can be bought by business. It also shows that big government, e.g. single payer, e.g. VA non-care for all, is their penultimate goal.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
July 6th, 2014 @ 12:17 pm

It has always been their Holy Grail…although there is nothing holy about it.
rambler
July 6th, 2014 @ 12:21 pm

The dems painted themselves in a corner on this one. The ACA is nothing but force and that will be its undoing.
tsrblke
July 6th, 2014 @ 12:36 pm

I still think they’re bolting from the mandate because it gets in the way of single payer.
Kill the mandate, watch tons of people shift their workers to the exchanges (where they’re somewhere between “possible” and “likely” to get subsidies) then complain about how much money we’re funneling to private insurance companies.
I don’t know if that was the plan from the beginning or if the dems just stumbled into that plan, but that seems to be it now.
Dana
July 6th, 2014 @ 12:38 pm

I’ve been saying it for years: Obaminablecare was never meant to work; it was simply meant to pass. Then, once it falls apart completely, but the principle that the federal government is ultimately responsible for everyone having access to health care, the Democrats will throw up their hands and say, “See, we tried it the ‘conservative’ way, through the private health insurance system, and it didn’t work, and single payer is the only option left.”
maniakmedic
July 6th, 2014 @ 12:40 pm

I would find this so much more schadenfreude-licious if it didn’t affect so many good people who knew it was bad based on a functioning knowledge of how economics and incentives work in the real world and vehemently opposed it from the get-go. I have zero empathy for idiots reaping the results of their idiocy. I do, however, feel for those who oppose it in any way they can but still end up having it foisted onto them “for their own good” by self-important jackasses who think they are the most special of the special snowflakes and can therefore do no wrong (and if you think they can you should be lined up against a wall and shot because you are unworthy of life).
Rep. Raul Labrador Burns Down David Gregory | Regular Right Guy
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:22 pm

[…] Good-Bye, Employer Mandate? […]
Anon Y. Mous
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:24 pm

And without the employer mandate, exactly what would remain of ObamaCare, except Medicare expansion and state “exchanges”?

The individual mandate. The necessity that every (legal) person in these United States prove to the IRS that they have purchased a government approved health insurance policy.
Escher's House
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:37 pm

What remains? An awful lot of regulation of medical care providers, huge subsidies to insurance companies, taxes galore, the individual mandate (excuse me, John Roberts, tax), the subsidies on the exchanges, the treatment mandates, community rating, the blow-off of coverage limits, pre-existing condition prohibitions. It would remain a disaster, even without the business mandates.
Escher's House
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:40 pm

Sorry, I forgot one of the most important. The Independent Payment Advisory Board or IPAB. What Palin called the “death panel.”
Quartermaster
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:44 pm

Just in case you didn’t know it, Zombies can only be stopped by head shots.
Quartermaster
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:45 pm

Please, Please, PLEASE – “Unholy Grail.”
Quartermaster
July 6th, 2014 @ 1:46 pm

Yeppers! Dr. Goebbels is still alive and is now serving the DimoKKKrap Party.
M. Thompson
July 6th, 2014 @ 2:31 pm

Also, fire. But then killing it with fire is always acceptable.
jony101
July 6th, 2014 @ 2:52 pm

this and a gay military are obamas signature accomplishments, obamacare will limp along as long as he is president. I would include golfing as another accomplishment but is it really an accomplishment? Will at least we still got the individual mandate intact, its not over till obama says it’s over.
cmdr358
July 6th, 2014 @ 5:50 pm

“I would include golfing as another accomplishment but is it really an accomplishment? ”

Depends on his handicap?
Bob Belvedere
July 6th, 2014 @ 5:58 pm

And which is, in fact, the Death Panel.
Daniel O'Brien
July 6th, 2014 @ 6:18 pm

Or nuke it from space. That’s the only way to be sure.
Quartermaster
July 6th, 2014 @ 6:25 pm

You can’t kill a Zombie. Obviously, you’re in need of redial training before the Zombie Apocalypse occurs.
REDJI
July 6th, 2014 @ 7:10 pm

All Congress needs to do is cut off the money supply, let the Free Market loose from Government Control……..It’s the regulations that are killing the Healthcare Marketplace……Pay for the risks you take in this life……DUH…
bittman
July 6th, 2014 @ 7:46 pm

Expect the Progressive Democrats to start pressing for single payer — which the VA is daily demonstrating is a gigantic failure. Of course, they’ll lie to us and tell us we can keep our healthcare plans, our doctors, and our costs will go down $2,500.
Matt_SE
July 6th, 2014 @ 9:26 pm

Sorry, it’s not that easy.
Let’s say Congress cut off the funds, but the law was still on the books; there would be no enforcement.
In that case, any political leftist with an axe to grind (i.e. all of them) could sue an employer for X, Y or Z that the employer didn’t do under the law. The courts, being all about upholding the laws on the books, would have no choice but to side with the plaintiffs.
Even if court cases were never brought, there would be a huge chilling effect on businesses.

The law has to be repealed, in full.
Matt_SE
July 6th, 2014 @ 9:33 pm

Nah, it’s because the 8 million people that lost insurance under the individual mandate stirred up a shitstorm.
The employer mandate would make around 80 million people lose their insurance.
Think about that: there would literally be nobody in the U.S. that didn’t either lose their insurance, or know someone else that did.
And since the cost of Obamacare is already way over projections, it would instantly collapse the system.
Democrats would be blamed for generations.

*This* is why Obama has postponed the employer mandate implementation.
richard mcenroe
July 7th, 2014 @ 2:23 am

Thank God they’re going to ease the burden on employers. Still gonna force US to pay more than we want to for coverage we don’t need, right?
Will Democrats on their own kill the ObamaCare Employee Mandate? | Batshit Crazy News
July 7th, 2014 @ 10:02 am

[…] TOM: Zombie ObamaCare, It’s Dead, But It Can Never Be Killed… […]
K-Bob
July 7th, 2014 @ 2:56 pm

Great. We have a Zombie Constitution and a Zombie State-run medical system. Looks like crazy Uncle Joe Biden was right: buy a shotgun.

Except you need to make it one of these…

http://images.gizmag.com/hero/aa-12-combat-shotgun-frag-12-automatic.jpg
anonymous
July 8th, 2014 @ 1:14 am

If you like your borders, you can keep them.