Committee Leaders Urge President Obama to Provide Details on Employer Mandate Delay

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The decision to delay enforcement of the employer mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has created a host of new questions and concerns that need to be addressed, according to a letter sent today to President Obama from House Republican leaders.


The letter was signed by Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN), Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), as well as Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), House Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam (R-IL), House Republican Conference Vice Chair Lynn Jenkins (R-KS), and House Republican Policy Committee Chairman James Lankford (R-OK).

"The administration made this decision behind closed doors," said Chairmen Camp, Kline, Ryan, and Upton. "The public deserves to know what prompted this decision-and why the administration won't give American families the same relief it gave to American businesses. We hope President Obama will be forthright with Congress and the American people."hope President Obama will provide Congress and the American people the answers we deserve."

In the letter to the president, Republican leaders write:

PPACA places an enormous new burden on employers that clearly contributes to the economy and job growth remaining relatively stagnant. We recognize that the decision to delay the employer mandate was likely not a decision you made in only a day and necessarily required substantial review by analysts at the Department of the Treasury, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, as well as the Office of Management and Budget. Your decision to delay one part of the law affecting employers and leave in place provisions regulating individual and family health care creates many new questions and concerns.

To understand the full effects of delaying enforcement of the employer mandate, Republican leaders asked President Obama to provide by August 1 any administration analysis that examined:

• The legality of the decision to unilaterally delay the mandate;
• The effect on the ability of the Internal Revenue Service and Health Care Exchanges to verify and prevent fraud regarding individual eligibility for premium tax credits and cost sharing subsidies;
• Changes in federal spending and revenues;
• The change in the number of individuals receiving subsidies through the exchange for calendar year 2014;
• The change in the number of individuals expected to pay the individual mandate penalty for calendar year 2014;
• The change in the number of employers who currently provide health care coverage;
• Changes in enrollment in Medicaid for calendar year 2014; and
• The number of individuals working part-time involuntarily and business reducing the number of hours employees work to below 30 hours.

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