Thread: Drudge Report: MAKING IT UP AS HE GOES ALONG: EMPLOYER MANDATE DELAYED AGAIN

Drudge Report

MAKING IT UP AS HE GOES ALONG: EMPLOYER MANDATE DELAYED AGAIN

OBAMA: 'I Can Do Whatever I Want'...

Gym members forced to pay new tax......

Obama Rewrites Obamacare...

Directly Violates Text of Affordable Care Act...

http://www.conservativeoutfitters.co...-he-goes-along

OBAMA: 'I Can Do Whatever I Want'... Gym members forced to pay new tax... Rewrites Obamacare... 'Avalanche' of Regs Still to Come... MAKING IT UP AS HE GOES ALONG

President Obama "quipped" today during a visit to Monticello with the French president, "That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want."

MAKING IT UP AS HE GOES ALONG: EMPLOYER MANDATE DELAYED AGAIN

Gym memberships add Obamacare tax

MYFOXNY - Some people who are members of the health club Planet Fitness are finding their membership costs have gone up because of the Affordable Health Care Act.

A sign posted at a Falls Church, Va. location says "Holders of Black Card memberships will be required to pay a tax on these memberships Starting January 1, 2014 as required by the implementation of provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act. This is not a change in your membership fee but rather a tax required by the government."



The reason these accounts are forced to charge the new tax is because they include the option for members to tan at the clubs. Obamacare has a tax on tanning salons. It doesn't matter if the member uses or does not use the tanning facilities.

The tax, called an excise tax, is 10 percent. A Black Card membership is about $20 a month so the gym user would have to fork over an extra $24 a year in taxes.

The reason that people might get the so-called Black Card membership without wanting to tan is that it gives the member reciprocal use of all Planet Fitness locations without having to pay extra.

Obama’s New Delay of Employer Mandate Violates Plain Language of Law

CNSNews.com - President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department issued a new regulation today that for the second time directly violates the plain and unambiguous text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by allowing some businesses to avoid the law’s Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to provide health insurance coverage to their employees.
Initially, on July 2, 2013, the administration unilaterally delayed the deadline for the employer mandate until 2015. Now, the administration is unilaterally delaying it for some businesses until 2016.
In its official summary of PPACA, the Congressional Research Service said: “(Sec. 1513, as modified by section 10106) Imposes fines on large employers (employers with more than 50 full-time employees) who fail to offer their full-time employees the opportunity to enroll in minimum essential coverage or who have a waiting period for enrollment of more than 60 days.”
The text of the law itself describes an “applicable large employer” as follows: “The term ‘applicable large employer’ means, with respect to a calendar year, an employer who employed an average of at least 50 full-time employees on business days during the preceding calendar year.”
The final words in the section of PPACA mandating that employers with more than 50 full-time employees provide their employees with “minimum essential coverage” imposes a specific statutory deadline for doing so. It says: “EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.”
Last summer, the administration unilaterally moved this hard statutory deadline back one year to 2015 for all employers with more than 50 full-time employees. Now, without any action by Congress, the administration is moving it back again for some employers—despite the plain language of the law.
The Treasury Department has issued a fact sheet explaining how the Obama administration’s new declaration changes the meaning of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The fact sheet says:
“To ensure a gradual phase-in and assist the employers to whom the policy does apply, the final rules provide, for 2015, that: The employer responsibility provision will generally apply to larger firms with 100 or more full-time employees starting in 2015 and employers with 50 or more full-time employees starting in 2016.”
The fact sheet goes on to say:
“To avoid a payment for failing to offer health coverage, employers need to offer coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95 percent in 2016 and beyond, helping employers that, for example, may offer coverage to employees with 35 or more hours, but not yet to that fraction of their employees who work 30 to 34 hours.”
It further says:
“While the employer responsibility provisions will generally apply starting in 2015, they will not apply until 2016 to employers with at least 50 but fewer than 100 full-time employees if the employer provides an appropriate certification described in the rules.”
And also:
“Employers that are subject to the employer responsibility provisions in 2015 must offer coverage to at least 70 percent of full-time employees as one of the conditions for avoiding an assessable payment, rather than 95 percent which will begin in 2016.”
In sum, the law says that employers with “at least 50 full-time employees” must provide “minimum essential coverage” in the “months beginning after December 31, 2013” or pay a fine. The new declaration from the Obama administration’s Treasury Department says this part of the law no longer applies. It says employers with between 50 and 99 employees need not provide coverage until 2016 and larger employers need only provide coverage to 70 percent of their employees next year.


http://www.conservativeoutfitters.co...-he-goes-along

White House Delays ObamaCare Mandate For Another Year Even Though Things Are Going Just Swell




Mike Miller
On February 10, 2014
http://mikesright.wordpress.com/

The Obama administration announced Monday it would give companies with between 50 and 99 employees until 2016 to comply with ObamaCare’s employer mandate. Companies with 100 or more employees must comply by 2015.
Team Obama had already delayed the implementation of the employer mandate by a year, initially pushing the requirements off until 2015. Now, the Treasury Department has announced that the administration will not enforce the rules on midsize small businesses until 2016.
As to be expected, Republicans blasted the latest unilateral decision by Obama to delay the mandate – which has already been delayed once. Critics contend that the president’s multiple unilateral decisions to selectively delay parts of the Affordable Care Act are based on political considerations; initially with an eye on this year’s midterm elections, and now, with an additional eye on the 2016 presidential election.
As reported by The Washington Post, even the nation’s largest employers got a significant concession: They can avoid a fine by offering coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95 percent starting in 2016. Under an earlier proposal, employers with at least 50 employees would have been required to offer insurance, beginning 2015, to 95 percent of those who work 30 hours or more a week, along with their dependents.
So again, coincidence? Are these additional delays driven by the administration’s desire to provide temporary relief to businesses, or are they the result of Democrats facing a tough midterm election in less than nine months — and a presidential election in 2016?

Obama: ‘That’s The Good Thing As a President, I Can Do Whatever I Want’



http://www.ijreview.com/2014/02/1141...ng-just-swell/

Obamacare employer mandate delayed for political advantage

By Associated Press February 11, 2014 6:55 am

WASHINGTON - Trying to limit election-year damage on health care, the Obama administration Monday granted business groups another delay in a much-criticized requirement that larger firms cover their workers or face fines.
In one of several concessions in a complex Treasury Department regulation, the administration said companies with 50 to 99 employees will have an additional year to comply with the coverage mandate, until January 1, 2016.
For businesses with 100 or more employees the requirement will still take effect in 2015. But other newly announced provisions, affecting technical issues such as the calculation of working hours, may help some of those firms.
Some major business organizations were quick to praise the administration's compromise.
"These final regulations secured the gold medal for greatest assistance to retailers, and other businesses, and our employees," said Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation.
Under President Barack Obama's health care law, most small businesses don't have to offer coverage. There is no mandate on firms with fewer than 50 employees.
But for companies with 50 or more workers, the coverage requirement was originally supposed to have taken effect this year. The administration's announcement last summer of a one-year delay was the first sign of potential problems with the rollout of President Barack Obama's health care law.
Since then, the rollout of the law has resembled a gigantic crisis management drill. The new online signup system at HealthCare.gov was crippled by technical problems for the better part of two months last fall. Separately, millions of people who were already buying health insurance individually had those policies cancelled because the plans did not meet the law's requirements.
Republicans decided to again make the health care law their top issue in the midterm congressional elections, hoping to take control of the Senate by unseating vulnerable Democrats who voted for the law back in 2010.
The actions Monday by the administration could help those Democrats, defusing Republican charges that the law is a "job killer."
In other provisions announced Monday, the administration said:
- Companies will not face fines if they offer coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015, although they will have to ramp that up to 95 percent by 2016. The law defines "full time" as people working an average of 30 hours a week per month. That concession is expected to help firms who have a lot of workers averaging right around 30 hours.
- Volunteer firefighters and others who give of their time will not be considered employees for under the law. Some volunteer fire departments worried they might have to shut down if forced to provide health insurance.
- Adjunct faculty members at colleges will be deemed to have worked 2 hours and 15 minutes for each hour of classroom time they are assigned to teach. Officials said that means someone teaching 15 hours a week in the classroom would be considered "full time" and eligible for coverage, but someone teaching 12 hours may be considered part-time.
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