After having wiped out the requirement for people to have health insurance, The New York Times reports Republicans are now taking aim at the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that employers offer coverage to employees.
And many employers are cheering the effort. Large companies have long offered health benefits, but many have chafed at the detailed requirements under the health law, which they see as onerous and expensive.
“It is inequitable to leave the employer mandate in place when its purpose—to support the individual mandate—no longer exists,” says James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, the lobbying firm for companies like Dow Chemical, Microsoft and BP.
Republican Reps. Devin Nunes of California and Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania recently introduced a bill—supported by party leaders—to suspend the mandate, canceling any penalties that would be imposed on employers for not offering coverage for any year from 2015 to 2018. “The employer mandate is a job-killer, a wage-killer and a business-killer,” Kelly says.
But Tom Leibfried, an A.F.L.-C.I.O. health care lobbyist, calls the proposals to repeal or weaken the employer mandate a bad idea. “If you get rid of the employer mandate, you will see people lose coverage from their employers,” he says.
