Obama delays health insurance mandate for mid-sized businesses until 2016

(NaturalNews) The Obama administration has issued yet another delay to a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, a move that has thrown further confusion into an already complex - and deteriorating - healthcare situation.

The Treasury Department said on Monday that it was further delaying an Obamacare mandate requiring employers to provide insurance coverage to their workers. It is the second time that the mandate has been pushed back by the administration; initially, the requirement was set to kick in January 1.

The new rules allow mid-sized employers - those with between 50 and 99 employees - to put off providing them with health insurance coverage until 2016. That also means that those employers won't be penalized by the federal government until then as well.

Larger companies are getting a break too, as reported by The Washington Post:

Companies with 100 workers or more are getting a different kind of one-year grace period. Instead of being required in 2015 to offer coverage to 95 percent of full-time workers, these bigger employers can avoid a fine by offering insurance to 70 percent of them next year.

Another political ploy by the White House?

According to reports, the administration is trying to sell the new delay as pragmatic; officials said the decision was made in response to concerns from businesses that were likely going to struggle financially with the requirement to cover their workers. As such, the dual-phase-in period was required.

Critics of the decision were quick to note that it appeared, once again, that the administration was attempting to provide political cover for Democrats who supported the unpopular law in the run-up to the 2014 (and now 2016) elections.