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If you are confused about the new healthcare law, you are not alone. Even the folks in Washington who are supposed to be implementing the law are confused. It seems like every week another provision of the law is collapsing under its own weight. The latest is the delay of the employer mandate—(the provision that requires businesses with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees to offer prescribed health benefits to their employees and dependents or potentially pay steep penalties).
Even if you are paying close attention to the latest updates on the law’s implementation, you could have easily missed this one. News of the delay was not formally announced, but quietly slipped into a blog entry of one of the President’s top advisors.
“We’re giving businesses more time to comply,” blogged advisor Valerie Jarrett, who also claimed that the White House is “listening” to small business.
It’s true that extra time to comply with one of the most convoluted parts of the law might provide marginal help to some small-business owners. But delay is not the long-term solution to rising healthcare costs that the small-business community has been asking for. Read on