On Monday, Feb. 10, the White House announced that it is giving employers more time to comply with the rollout of the new health care mandate for all full-time employees.
The new rules will give companies with 50 to 99 workers until 2016 to comply without any type of federal penalty. The White House also announced that companies with 100 workers or more will have until 2015 to comply—a year longer than previously announced. Large companies can also avoid a fine by offering insurance to 70 percent of those workers next year.
The American Hotel and Lodging Association (AH&LA) has lobbied aggressively to delay the mandate, saying that the law would lead to multiple problems for hotels in terms of costs and staffing.
“Today’s announcement by the Treasury Department that the ACA’s employer mandate will be delayed until 2016 for businesses with fewer than 100 employees is very welcome news,” said Katherine Lugar, AH&LA president/CEO. “This demonstrates the Administration’s growing understanding of the lingering uncertainty and concern among hotels and other businesses about implementation of the health care law—many areas of which are still being finalized.”
The announcement did not make changes to the definition of a full-time worker, which is still stated as an employee who averages 30 hours a week or more. “This further delay,” said Lugar, “provides our industry with additional opportunities to engage with Administration officials and provide input on the regulatory process to ensure the concerns of hoteliers are taken into account when additional rules are finalized, as well as work with Congress and the Administration on targeted, legislative fixes, such as adjusting the ACA’s full-time employee definition upward from 30 hours.”
