IRS loosens employer mandate reporting requirements

Originally posted September 9, 2013 by Gillian Roberts on https://eba.benefitnews.com

In a follow-up to the Obama administration’s July 2 employer mandate delay, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service issued a proposed rule late last week that would make certain reporting requirements in the provision of the Affordable Care Act voluntary. According to a statement by the department, “The regulatory proposals reflect an ongoing dialogue with representatives of employers, insurers, other reporting entities, and individual taxpayers.”

The changes include:

  • “Eliminating the need to determine whether particular employees are full-time if adequate coverage is offered to all potentially full-time employees.”
  • “Replacing section 6056 employee statements with Form W-2 reporting on offers of employer-sponsored coverage to employees, spouses, and dependents.”
  • “Limited reporting for certain self-insured employers offering no-cost coverage to employees and their families.”

“Today’s proposed rules enable us to continue engaging on how best to implement the ACA reporting requirements in a more streamlined and focused manner,” said Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur in the statement.  “We will continue to consider ways, consistent with the law, to simplify the new information reporting process and bring about a smooth implementation of those new rules.”

The full statement can be found here and the full rule, with details to provide comments, can be found here.


White House proposes new employer mandate rules

Originally posted September 6, 2013 by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar on https://www.benefitspro.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Thursday released new proposals for carrying out a major requirement of the federal health care law that was postponed earlier this summer.

At issue is how to gather information that would allow the government to enforce a requirement that companies with 50 or more workers provide affordable health insurance to their full-time employees. Companies that don't comply would risk fines.

The mandate was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, but in July the White House unexpectedly announced a one-year delay until 2015. Officials said more time was needed to work out information reporting requirements so they would not be too burdensome for businesses. Delaying the mandate also defused a potential political problem for Democrats in next year's congressional elections.

The new proposal from the Treasury Department seeks comment on options to reduce or streamline reporting by employers, insurers and health plan administrators. In some instances, the administration is proposing to eliminate duplicative reports and in other cases, it's asking for less detail.

Business groups said it will take time to sort through the technicalities but praised the administration's effort to find common ground.

"Retailers are not interested in being overly burdened by bureaucratic red tape or time-wasting, duplicative reporting requirements," Neil Trautwein, the top health policy official for the National Retail Federation, said in a statement.

The information reported by employers and insurers is also critical in enforcing the law's central requirement that virtually all Americans carry health insurance starting Jan. 1. That so-called individual mandate has not been delayed and remains in full force.

The Treasury Department said it will be soliciting feedback on its proposals through early November, and will use the comments to develop final rules.

Although the one-year delay of the employer coverage requirement remains in effect, the administration says it hopes employers will voluntarily begin reporting information next year to smooth the transition in 2015.


NAHU: Employer mandate delay 'necessary' despite $12 billion cost

Originally posted July 30, 2013 by Alex Wayne (Bloomberg) and EBA staff on https://eba.benefitnews.com

A National Association of Health Underwriters spokeswoman says that while there are "short-term financial repercussions" to the employer mandate delay, "we believe this delay was necessary to continue the economic upturn we have seen in the past few months and ensure that American businesses will be able to provide their employees with the health insurance they want and need in the long term.”

President Barack Obama’s decision to give employers a year before they’re required to provide health insurance for workers will cost taxpayers $12 billion, the Congressional Budget Office says in a letter to members of Congress.

The health law will now cost $1.375 trillion through 2023, an increase of $12 billion since May, the CBO says. The government will lose $10 billion in penalties that companies would have paid next year for not providing employee health plans, and taxpayers will spend $3 billion more on subsidies for workers who instead will buy coverage on the exchanges.

The White House announced the delay on July 2, in response to a lobbying effort from business groups. The Affordable Care Act requires companies with 50 or more workers to offer health insurance to their workers or pay fines of as much as $3,000 per employee if they don’t. Now, companies don’t have to provide coverage until 2015.

“Some large employers that would have offered health insurance coverage to their employees in 2014 will no longer do so as a result of the one-year delay of penalties for those that do not offer affordable coverage,” Douglas Elmendorf, the director of the CBO, wrote in the letter.

The costs of the delay were offset by about $1 billion because of “small changes,” CBO said, including an increase in income tax collections from people who don’t get coverage at work. The value of employer-provided health insurance isn’t taxed, while workers who get higher pay to buy insurance on their own would have to pay income tax on that compensation. CBO also reports that “one million fewer people are expected to be enrolled in employment-based coverage in 2014” than the group predicted in May, also due to the employer mandate delay.

Even with the mandate’s delay, the health law is projected to reduce the deficit, the CBO says, because of lower Medicare spending and other provisions that offset the cost of new coverage. The CBO said May 15 that repealing the law would cost the federal government $109 billion, a figure it didn’t update today.

 


How to Best Inform Employees About PPACA

Originally posted July 29, 2013 by Thom Mangan on https://eba.benefitnews.com

Benefit education has long been considered a key component of a successful employee benefit program. However, engaging employees and helping them recognize the value of their program is not easy.  It takes ongoing efforts of HR Managers with support from senior management.

The Affordable Care Act creates another new wrinkle for HR managers. I caught up with UBA Partner, Greg Smith of R.W. Garrett Agency, to find out how best to get your employee’s attention — and why it’s so important.

Thom: In addition to the mandated communication material and benefit changes, how does PPACA affect an employer’s communication efforts?

Greg: With the new health insurance marketplaces and Medicaid expansion in most states, the government has a daunting task of educating and informing millions of the nation’s uninsured of the new coverage and subsidies available to them.

To get the word out, the government will spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a broad and expansive advertising campaign starting this month (July).

Employers are also participating in the campaign, as they are required to send out a Model Notice regarding coverage and options in the New Health Insurance Marketplaces.

The Marketplaces and corresponding advertising campaign are focused on the uninsured, who may be eligible for “free” coverage (through Medicaid) or subsidized, reduced premium coverage (in the New Insurance Marketplaces).  However, if the employer’s plan provides adequate and affordable coverage, the employees eligible for the plan will not qualify for any subsidized coverage in the New Insurance Marketplace (unless eligible for Medicaid).

Thom: So where does the trouble come in?

Greg: The wrinkle comes from two sources – confusion and human nature:

1.   Confusion – Unless explained adequately, the employee may be confused as to why his employer is sending him notice of a New Insurance Marketplace with subsidized coverage, when, in fact, he is not eligible for a subsidy.

2.  Human Nature – Employees may misinterpret or misunderstand the message of the government’s advertising and think that by dropping coverage, they may get a better deal in the Marketplace or, worse, believe that their benefits are not as valuable as they are.

Thom: So what is an employer to do to get around these problems, or “wrinkles”?

Greg: I believe employers can get out ahead of the “wrinkle” by pre-empting the government’s advertising with communications of their own. They can lay out the facts of the advertising campaign and reinforce the quality of their own plan.

Just because the White House has delayed the implementation of the employer mandate part of the Affordable Care Act doesn’t mean employers don’t have to communicate options to employees. On the contrary, they would be wise to use the extra year to make sure they and their employees are adequately prepared for the pending changes of 2015.

 


Delay of health reform mandate has employers making hard benefit choices

Originally posted July 14, 2013 by Jerry Geisel on https://www.businessinsurance.com

Some employers may offer health insurance despite mandate delay.

Affected employers face some tough decisions on what approach they will take in the wake of the Obama administration's unexpected decision to delay a key health care reform law provision.

Administration officials this month delayed by one year to 2015 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requirement that employers with 50 or more employees offer qualified coverage to at least 95% of their full-time employees or pay a $2,000 penalty for each full-time employee.

U.S. Treasury Department officials said the delay was necessary to give the agency more time to simplify how employers are to file health care plan enrollment information with the government.

That delay is being welcomed by employers, especially those who have not decided whether they will offer coverage to those not currently eligible; or, if they have decided, the generosity of the coverage they will provide.

“This is a rare opportunity where an employer can make a smart and thoughtful decision,” said John McGowan, a partner with the law firm Baker & Hostetler L.L.P. in Cleveland.

Some employers, especially those that already have told affected employees that they will expand coverage, are less likely to reverse course and hold off that expansion for another year.

“If you already have figured out your strategy, you probably will implement it,” said J.D. Piro, a senior vice president with Aon Hewitt in Norwalk, Conn.

For example, Cumberland Gulf Group in June announced that, effective Oct. 1, employees working as few as 32 hours a week will be eligible for group coverage, down from the current 40-hour-a-week requirement.

Employees working 30 or 31 hours a week will be given the option of working 32 hours to become eligible for coverage in the company's self-insured plans. For employees who work less than 30 hours, the company will assist them in finding coverage through public insurance ex-changes.

Through that expansion of coverage, which will affect about 1,500 employees, Cumberland Gulf, a $15 billion Framingham, Mass.-based company that owns convenience stores and the Gulf Oil brand, will be shielded from the health care reform law's $2,000 per-employee penalty, which is triggered when coverage is not offered to full-time employees — those working at least 30 hours per week.

That expansion of coverage will remain on track, said John McMahon, Cumberland Gulf's senior vice president and chief of human resources.

“We are going to continue on the path we have laid out. Our strategy is to create a great place to work and to be an employer of choice,” Mr. McMahon said, adding that the company is getting very positive feedback from current and prospective employees.

Other employers who also have announced plans to expand coverage eligibility, though, may find themselves between a “rock and a hard place,” said Ed Fensholt, senior vice president and director of compliance services for Lockton Benefit Group in Kansas City, Mo.

Those employers “will have to weigh the cost savings by pulling the plug for a year with the confusion and damage to employee relations that would occur,” Mr. Fensholt said.

Employers that do not offer coverage to all eligible employees and have not made final decisions on whether they will expand coverage also face issues.

For example, if they wait until 2015 to offer coverage, they could be at a disadvantage if their competitors decide to extend coverage next year, said Steve Wojcik, vice president of public policy at the National Business Group on Health in Washington.

There are other issues for employers not currently offering coverage to consider. By not offering coverage, their lower- and middle-income employees will be eligible for premium subsidies to purchase policies from insurers offering coverage in public insurance exchanges.

Then, in 2015, when the coverage mandate kicks in, the employer could offer a plan that is just rich enough to pass the law's minimum value test, denying employees the government subsidies for exchange coverage they received in 2014.

“Then, you have an employee relations issue,” Mr. Fensholt said.

That issue will be less likely to develop, experts say, if the employees received employer coverage beginning in 2014 and never enrolled in exchanges.

“Some employees will be disappointed. It could be an awkward situation,” said Frank McArdle, an independent benefits consultant in Bethesda, Md.

Still, there are plenty of employers not providing coverage who will decide against offering coverage in 2014.

Employers “may not want to move forward until the dust settles. Some are wondering if the regulations and requirements will actually change during this interim period,” said Michael Thompson, a principal with PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P. in New York.

In addition, by waiting, employers will have a better sense of whether Congress will act in the coming months to change the employer mandate, experts say.

For example, prior to the Treasury Department delay, bills were introduced that would change the definition of a full-time employee to those working 40 hours a week — compared with the law's 30-hour threshold — while other measures would exempt more small employers from the requirement to either offer coverage or pay the $2,000 per-employee fine.

While it is difficult to imagine Congress reaching a bipartisan consensus, “anything is possible,” said Rich Stover, a principal with Buck Consultants L.L.C. in Secaucus, N.J.

 


8 reasons for employers to keep their PPACA guard up

Originally published July 17, 2013 by Dan Cook on https://www.benefitspro.com

Now that the celebrations have died down over the one-year delay of penalties for employers who don’t meet the PPACA coverage requirements, it’s time to take a close look at what does remain in effect.

The very short answer to the question is that there’s still quite a bit on the books, and that, really, only the teeth have been (temporarily) removed.

Here’s what the national law firm Bryan Cave had to say about which PPACA provisions remain in effect for employers in the year ahead.

1.  Summaries of Benefits and Coverage must be distributed during open enrollment for the 2014 coverage period and must indicate whether the plan provides minimum value, as defined under the PPACA.

2.  Exchange Notices: Employers must distribute PPACA exchange notices to employees by Oct. 1, 2013, and thereafter to new employees upon hire.

3.  Application for Advance Premium Credits: Employers are required to complete a 12-page form entitled, “Application for Health Coverage and Help Paying Costs” when requested by employees who are applying for PPACA advance premium tax credits when purchasing coverage via an exchange.

4.  PPACA fees: Patient-Centered Outcome Research Institute Fees (“PCORI Fees”) must be paid in July 2013 (that’s now!). The first Transitional Reinsurance Fee must be paid on or before Jan. 15, 2015. PCORI is a private non-profit corporation that gathers research-based information to assist patients, practitioners and policy makers in making informed health care decision.

5.  W-2 reporting: Employers must continue to report the aggregate value of health coverage on Forms W-2.

6.  Counting Period for Employer Mandate: Employers that need to determine whether they will be subject to the employer mandate in 2015 (50 or more full-time or full-time equivalent employees in 2014) will need to record employee hours in 2014. It is not yet clear whether a short counting period will be available, which means that employers may be smartest to begin to track hours on a per-employee, monthly basis on Jan. 1.

7.  Benefit Mandates For All Plans: Plan design requirements for all plans continue to apply (e.g., maximum 90-day waiting period, no limits on pre-existing conditions or essential health benefits, expansion of wellness incentives, dependent coverage to age 26).

8.  Benefit Mandates for Non-Grandfathered Plans Only: Plan design requirements for non-grandfathered plans only continue to apply (e.g., preventive care coverage requirements, limits on out-of-pocket maximums, coverage for clinical trial-related services, and provider nondiscrimination, and for small group health plans, limits on annual deductibles).

 

 


What hasn't changed for employers in 2014?

Originally posted by Keith R. McMurdy on https://ebn.benefitnews.com

In a move that was generally applauded by employers, the Obama administration announced last week that it would delay implementation of the employer health coverage mandate under the Affordable Care Act until January 1, 2015. The good news is that this gives employers another year to prepare for the so-called pay-or-play mandate that requires employers with at least 50 full-time-equivalent employees to offer affordable health coverage to those who work at least 30 hours a week. The bad news is that it remains unclear what compliance still means for employers.

While the employer mandate is suspended, a variety of key provisions that go into effect on January 1, 2014 remain in play. Subject to any future adjustments, plans are still obligated to comply with a number of specific changes. These include:

  • Waiting periods cannot exceed 90 days
  • Caps on annual out-of-pocket maximums and elimination of lifetime and annual limits
  • Revised Summary of Benefits and Coverage notices and a required notice of availability of exchanges
  • Excise taxes and fees, such as the PCORI fee and the reinsurance program fee

While we are awaiting further guidance, and any additional changes, plan sponsors should continue to take the necessary steps to make sure their plans are in compliance. Even though the pay-or-play mandate is suspended, plan sponsors could still be found to have non-compliant plans and face penalties around the ACA. So while you might be able to postpone changes relating to eligibility and affordability, you still have to revise your plan to make sure it complies. This delay only effects who you might have to offer coverage to, not the nature of the coverage that will ultimately be offered.

So employers as plan sponsors should take this delay as an opportunity to focus on making their plans 100% compliant. Consider 2014 a “measurement” year where you can implement those employment structures you might have already discussed to make sure your part-time and full-time employees are clearly defined. Consider this a brief reprieve and not an excuse to ignore ACA completely. Employers might have been given some breathing room on the final due date, but the project still has to be completed.

Used with permission from Fox Rothschild LLP. Keith R. McMurdy is an employee benefits attorney at the firm’s New York City office. To contact the author: kmcmurdy@foxrothschild.com. This Legal Alert is not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice for any particular fact situation.

 


Majority of employers already PPACA-compliant

Originally posted by Dan Cook on https://www.benefitspro.com

More than half of private companies surveyed about their readiness for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act said they were already in compliance with the law.

Moreover, three-quarters of them considered themselves prepared to meet the law’s requirements when they become the law of the land.

That’s the conclusion from a PwC (aka PriceWaterhouseCoopers) survey of 210 large private employers, nearly all of which offer their employees health coverage.

While the survey revealed a modest level of uncertainty among companies about just how they will comply, overall, private employers expressed confidence in their ability to offer employees a health plan that meets the letter of the law.

The PwC survey was conducted prior to the administration’s announcement that it would postpone for a year the penalty portions of the PPACA that apply to large employers.

Highlights from the survey include:

  • 56 percent of companies already comply with the PPACA.
  • 72 percent say they are prepared to comply.
  • 35 percent believe they are well prepared.
  • 74 percent say the cost of coverage to employees already meets the 9.5 percent-or-less of household income standard the law will require.
  • 70 percent don’t think the act will help them reduce the cost of coverage.
  • 58 percent say paying for employee health coverage hasn’t slowed their growth.

The survey revealed that many companies (70 percent) plan to take their own measures to try to control health care coverage costs, including shifting more of the cost to employees. That could lead them to run afoul of the 9.5-percent standard, warned PwC’s Ken Esch, a partner with PwC’s Private Company Services practice.

“Companies that plan to shift more healthcare costs to employees should be careful to calculate whether such cost-shifting could cause the company to fail the PPACA’s affordability test,” cautions Esch. “Companies that offer wellness incentives also should remember to take those incentives into account when calculating the minimum value of their healthcare coverage plans.”

 


PPACA struggles to meet make-or-break deadline

Originally posted by David Morgan on https://www.reuters.com

(Reuters) - With time running out, U.S. officials are struggling to cope with the task of launching the new online health insurance exchanges at the heart of President Barack Obama's signature health reforms by an October 1 deadline.

The White House, and federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), must ensure that working marketplaces open for enrollment in all 50 states in less than 80 days, and are responding to mounting pressure by concentrating on three essential areas that will determine whether the most critical phase of PPACA succeeds or fails.

"The administration right now is in a triage mode. Seriously, they do not have the resources to implement all of the provisions on time," Washington and Lee University professor Timothy Jost, a healthcare reform expert and advocate, told an oversight panel in the U.S. House of Representatives last week.

Current and former administration officials, independent experts andbusiness representatives say the three priorities are the creation of an online portal that will make it easy for consumers to compare insurance plans and enroll in coverage; the capacity to effectively process and deliver government subsidies that help consumers pay for the insurance; and retention of the law's individual mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to have health insurance when Obama's healthcare reform law comes into full force in 2014.

Measures deemed less essential, such as making larger employers provide health insurance to their full-time workers next year or face fines, and requiring exchanges to verify the health insurance and income status of applicants, have already been postponed or scaled back.

"The closer you get to the actual launch, the more you focus on what is essential versus what could be second-order issues," said a former administration official. "That concentrates the mind in a different kind of way, and that's what's happening here."

But the risk of failure in the form of major delays is palpable, given the administration's limited staff and financial resources, as well as the stubborn political opposition of Republicans, who have denied new money for the effort in Congress and prevented dozens of states from cooperating with initiatives that offer subsidized health coverage to millions of lower income uninsured people.

Any further delay could help Republicans make PPACA's troubles a focus of their campaign in next year's congressional midterm elections and in the 2016 presidential race.

HHS denies that its strategy has changed and insists that implementation continues to meet the milestones laid out by planners 18 months ago.

"All of the systems are exactly where we want them to be today. They will be ready to perform fully on October 1," said Mike Hash, director of the HHS Office of Health Reform.

White House officials acknowledge the approach of the open enrollment deadline has put a greater emphasis on priorities. They describe the strategy as a "smart, adaptive policy" and assert that delayed or scaled-back regulations demonstrate better policy decisions or flexibility with stakeholders, rather than a need to minimize distractions.

No Margin for Error

Advocates point out that the reform, formally titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and informally known as Obamacare, constitutes the most sweeping healthcare legislation since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, large successful government programs for the elderly and the low income that also faced fierce political opposition when they were created in 1965. Both required years of work after their launch to refine implementation.

The administration has already delayed or scaled back at least half a dozen health reform measures since last year. These include regulations involving star quality ratings for insurance company plans, the choice of insurance plans for small-business employees and a requirement that state Medicaid agencies notify individuals of their eligibility for federal assistance.

Other efforts that could still be delayed include deadlines for some health insurers to get their plans certified by HHS as well as requirements for how the insurance exchanges provide customer service.

House Speaker John Boehner and other House Republican leaders, warning of a "train wreck", have called on Obama to defer an essential task: the individual mandate, which requires people to have insurance coverage in 2014 or face penalties that begin modestly, but rise sharply by 2016.

But experts say it is the other essential tasks - establishing the high-tech capabilities necessary to process government insurance subsidies and create online shopping and enrollment for consumers - that could be most vulnerable with such a compressed timetable.

"The biggest hurdle is to get the systems up and running," said one health insurance official. "Nothing's happened so far that prevents you from being up and running on October 1. But there's virtually no margin for error."

The administration is working according to an ambitious schedule for testing a technology hub and its ability to transfer consumer data on health coverage, income, tax credits and other topics between federal agencies, insurance companies and states. The hub is already exchanging data between the necessary agencies.

A report from Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms says state-run exchanges are on track for a successful October 1 launch and have exceeded federal minimum requirements in some cases.

Failure to have adequate systems in place by September 4, when HHS is due to give insurers final notice about which health plans are qualified to be sold on 34 state exchanges run by the federal government, could delay open enrollment by days or weeks but still allow the law's core reform provisions to take effect on January 1, experts said.

Insurers will have several days in August to review plan data as it would be presented to prospective enrollees in side-by-side comparisons online. The administration also needs to test the system with a wider audience than the IT experts working on the exchanges to make sure they are consumer-friendly.

Michael Marchand, spokesman for Washington's Health Benefit Exchange, said the state's online marketplace had conducted frequent tests with the federal data hub, which had worked well so far. But any last-minute changes to the government's requirements to its operations could throw a wrench into the IT system, he said.

"If you start adding or removing lines of code it could bring the whole thing down," he said. "As you add or take away pieces, you have to re-test from the beginning."

(Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West in Washington and Sharon Begley in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Martin Howell)

 

 


ACA subsidies reliant on ‘self-reporting’ with absence of employer mandate

Originally posted by Gillian Roberts on https://eba.benefitnews.com

Industry insiders are beginning to find holes in the Affordable Care Act employer mandate delay announced last week by the Obama administration and U.S. Department of Treasury. The biggest hole so far, say brokers and media alike, is self-reporting for subsidies.

Thom Mangan, CEO of United Benefit Advisers and EBA advisory board member, says he had one main question for the Treasury after the announcement: What about the people who were going to potentially be eligible for subsidies if their employer was not offering “affordable” coverage, as the ACA stipulates? That answer came Friday from the Obama Administration. “It’s crazy,” Mangan says. “It’s self-reporting … Employers don’t have a mandate to go and report if a person is eligible for subsidy. Some people will just apply and they may be at 400% of poverty level, they may be 50%, whatever they report is whatever goes through.”

The announcement, which Mangan says was expected from the Treasury, came in a 606-page document that not only answered his aforementioned question but made clear that all subsidy verification would rely on self-reporting until 2015. Mangan says he predicts there are going to be “plenty” of people who are not qualified for subsidies getting them anyway. “We’re in for an awful 2014, 2015 for the IRS trying to figure this out,” he says.

A Mercer statement Monday on the subsidy loophole nodded to even more potential confusion. “Public exchanges, which are slated to be operational in 2014, may still reach out to employers to verify applicant eligibility for health insurance,” the statement said.

“It will be state by state, and it’s just going to be part of your tax return,” Mangan says about the possibility of some states pursuing verification. “I just moved to Illinois and it was pretty simple in my W2 paperwork, there’s a box [asking if you have health insurance] that if you didn’t check it, you’re going to get flagged.” He caveated that Illinois is ahead of other states in preparing paperwork of this nature already. With some states verifying and others potentially not, the budget could get tricky.

Also contributing to new budgeting problems for the ACA is the missing funds from employer penalties in 2014. Despite the varying sources that say between 94% and 98% of employers already offer coverage, Mangan says there were definitely some businesses planning to pay the fine and not “play.” He explains: “There were still some employers in the high part-time or low-wage industries that never provided benefits. They have 300% annual turnover in the fast food industry … that was more of a logistical nightmare than providing health insurance.” In fact, the Congressional Budget Office had estimated that the penalties from employers would add up to approximately $10 billion in 2014.

“I’d say the CBO had it spot on in terms of what we won’t collect in the end,” Mangan says.

Meanwhile, business groups and insurance brokers and agents immediately celebrated the extra time allowed for employer shared responsibility reporting, un-burdening employers who do not currently offer coverage, or were considering making a change, from making a decision on whether they would pay or play until 2015.

Brian Kalish contributed to this report.