First Read: “Republicans are jumping all over another delay the Obama administration announced when it comes to the health-care law. The Treasury Department on Monday unveiled its final rule for the employer mandate for businesses… Under these rules, if your business has between 50-99 workers, you don’t need to provide health insurance for your employees until 2016. But if it has 100 or more workers, you must offer insurance to 70% of workers by 2015 and 95% by 2016, or pay a penalty.”
“On the one hand, we’re not surprised Republicans are attacking what seems to be another delay — it would be political malpractice not to try to capitalize on it. On the other hand, the attacks ring a little hollow. After all, this is the rule-making process for ALL laws; rule-making gives the executive branch (whether it’s run by Democrats or Republicans) a lot of leeway in implementing laws. In addition, it’s hard for Republicans to hate mandates (whether it’s for employers or individuals) and then be upset when the mandate is softened to help employers implement the law.”
