Washington – Republicans Press White House To Delay Key Obamacare Mandate

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    President Barack Obama meets with his Cabinet and senior officials in the Cabinet Room of the White House, July 8, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)Washington – Congressional Republicans pressed President Barack Obama on Tuesday to delay a requirement under his healthcare law for Americans to obtain insurance next year after the administration gave employers a one-year reprieve from having to provide it to staff.

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    The U.S. Treasury and White House announced last week that businesses would not be required to offer health coverage, or pay a fine, in 2014 because the administration had not issued final regulations in time for employers to comply.

    The move sparked a new wave of Republican efforts to discredit Obama’s healthcare reform law and raised questions over whether the effort will be launched as planned.

    In a letter to Obama signed by House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and 10 other leading House Republicans, they asked for a detailed explanation of the delay of the “employer mandate,” asking for a reply from the president by August 1.

    “Please … provide to Congress your justification for only delaying the employer mandate at this time and not the new mandate on individuals and families,” they wrote. “We agree with you that the burden was overwhelming for employers, but we also believe American families need the same relief.”

    But White House spokesman Jay Carney said the individual mandate would go forward because Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides financial assistance to help lower-income people pay for insurance while exempting those who cannot afford coverage.

    “Next year, millions of Americans will get the help they need to purchase quality health insurance they currently cannot afford,” he said.

    Carney also criticized Republicans for failing to produce their own alternative to “Obamacare”, instead voting 37 times to repeal or defund the president’s law. Most of those measures died in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

    Carney said the Republicans would have denied benefits to the elderly, the sick and others.

    The individual mandate is a lynchpin of Obamacare plan’s to extend healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured Americans by offering subsidized insurance through new online marketplaces in all 50 states. It represents the government’s only lever for compelling enrollment among younger adults whose participation is needed to help curb insurance costs.

    But Republicans could have a hard time portraying the individual mandate as an onerous burden for voters in next year’s mid-term congressional election. The penalty for not complying is only $95 or 1 percent of taxable household income in 2014, and analysts say consumers who violate the mandate would not have to pay until 2015.


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    4 Comments
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    Mark Levin
    Mark Levin
    10 years ago

    REPEAL IT ENTIRELY!!!!!

    Why are they going along with Oblamo by delaying it? Boehner is a tipish with not much guts.

    iamoverhere
    iamoverhere
    10 years ago

    why delay it,
    either you want it now, or you don’t want it and want to get rid of the whole thing

    10 years ago

    Repeal it! There are so many holes and problems they are finding with it. Yes, it may be 95 in 2014 but it only goes up! It will eventually reach over 500!! I don’t have that kind of money to spend, and I don’t have the extra 95 now!!
    The gradual increases were made to stop the midterm elections from helping the republicans as people may not feel the same pain. But just wait. It’s coming.

    10 years ago

    Republican Fools,
    If you delay the individual mandate all us middle class income earners will pay the price. The individual mandate goes hand in hand with the pre existing conditions law. If you require insurance companies to accpet pre existing conditions and their is no mandate in place the following will occur. All those with pre exisiting conditions will sign up everyone else will not. Insurance companies will have to cover the costs for those expensive policies. They only solution is to charge the pool more money. The less in the pool (due to no mandate) the more they will charge. Thus all of us insured people will pay a higher price.
    I propose cancel the preexisting law. I think its not affordable and will dramaticlly increase premiums even with the mandate. But dream on. Its a Banana Republic.