On the heels of the employer mandate postponement – where large employers won't be fined for failing to provide employee benefits to their workers until January 2015 – the White House recently announced another delay that will affect both employers and consumers.
On the Friday after Independence Day, President Barack Obama and his administration issued a revised rule to the health law, stating that the verification process the government will use in order to certify whether consumers qualify for subsidies would be put on hold for another 12 months. This means that individuals will still be able to apply for federal assistance if they earn less than 400 percent of the poverty line, but officials will only corroborate eligibility based on information consumers themselves provide.
Reports indicate that federal oversight will be scaled back substantially, mainly because of bureaucratic barriers at the legislative and operational level.
Critics of the health reform law say that the wide array of issues that have developed in recent weeks serve as a microcosm of the legislation's inherent flaws. However, given its size and complexity, some health experts say that these complications were bound to arise inevitably.
"I think that Health and Human Services is doing the best that it can under the circumstances," Sara Rosenbaum, health policy professor at Georgetown University, told the Washington Post.
