3 More ObamaCare Delays You May Not Know About Yet

By now the Obama administration’s attempted holiday news dump of the news that ObamaCare’s employer mandate will be delayed is well-covered.

It has brought the disastrous law back into the forefront for many voters and, as the Washington Post described, “reenergized the law’s critics.”

As the Post’s Sarah Kliff explores today, there are also three other delays in the law that you may not know about.

“1. State-run marketplaces will not have to verify consumers’ claims that they do not receive health insurance from their employer. As Sandhya Somashekhar and I reported Friday, the health law relies partially on the federal government knowing who receives employer-sponsored insurance and who does not. Anyone who receives an affordable offer of health insurance from their employer (less than 9.5 percent of their income) does not qualify for a federal tax credit.

‘2. The federal government will scale back oversight of what applicants say they earn. Knowing an applicant’s salary is crucial for the Affordable Care Act: Their income determines what kind of tax subsidy they receive, if they get any assistance at all.

‘In preliminary rules, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services had proposed a system where they would audit anyone who reported an income that was 10 percent lower than what federal data said they earned in the previous year. It might turn out, the discrepancy was warranted, if the applicant lost their job, for example. Or, it could also be an attempt to game the system, using a lower income to qualify for higher tax credits.

‘3. Electronic notices will not be required until 2015. “We recognize that states are at different places in the development of their eligibility and enrollment systems,” CMS stated in the Friday regulation. “Technology needs to be in place to offer beneficiaries and applicants the option to receive notices electronically.” Out of concern that the technology won’t be in place, the federal government will give states until 2015 to roll out electronic notices. These would include notices of what tax subsidy, for example, an individual applicant is eligible to receive.”

These delays show a law that’s completely dysfunctional. We can’t afford this disastrous law and the effects it will have on the American people.

It’s time for a permanent delay.