Citing the challenges in
establishing a new health insurance marketplace, the Obama administration is
delaying a key provision of the Affordable Care Act designed to provide
employees of small businesses affordable health coverage.
The New York
Times reported Monday that in most states employers will not be able to provide
workers with a choice of health plans as the law intended. Instead, they will be
limited to a single plan.
One of the health law’s provisions, known as
“employee choice,” called for each state to operate a Small Business Health
Options Program, known as a SHOP exchange.
The exchange, which was to
start operating in January, is designed to allow small businesses and their
employees to compare health plans and enroll employees for coverage. However, in
33 states where the federal government will be running the exchanges, the choice
option will be delayed until 2015, meaning employees of small firms will only
have the choice of one plan. Other states operating their own exchanges will
also have the option to only offer a single plan as well.
A number of
insurers, including Aetna, had asked the Obama administration to delay the
“employee choice” option, citing their experience in
Insurers say they asked for the delay because the administration did not provide
final rules for the small business exchange until last month. However, a few
states including