With the Treasury Department's announcement that large employers will not be required to provide employee benefits to their workers until 2015, critics of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have used it as an opportunity to pounce on the health reform law, indicating that it's poorly designed framework is proof-positive that it's destined to fail.
According to the Washington Post, some of the most vociferous detractors have been in the U.S. Senate.
"The White House seems to slowly be admitting what Americans already know," said Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, referring to pools that demonstrate large swaths of the American public are opposed to the health reform law.
While the Obama administration has indicated the move was made because business owners have given indications they need more time, some interest groups say that this is nothing more than a red herring.
"[The White House] sent the message that thing that is their central achievement is all messed up," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, which is a conservative-leaning interest group, the paper reported. "The clear winners here are critics of the law. It continues to be unpopular on the ground, and this just fuels the intensity."
Tim Phillips, president of the conservative advocacy think tank Americans for Prosperity, told the Washington Post that the delay goes to show that the postponement is necessary because there are so many flaws in it.
Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have filed legislation in the hopes of changing some or material parts of the law. On 37 separate occasions, lawmakers have tried to repeal a portion or all of the ACA since it was signed into law in 2010.
