Our partners at the Labor Campaign for Single Payer commented on the Obama Administration's delaying of the employer mandate of the ACA. Read below as Mark Dudzic discusses the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act in relation to workers.
Last week, the Obama administration announced that they were delaying for one year the implementation of the "employer mandate" provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The mandate would have required all employers with 50 or more full-time employees to provide "affordable" healthcare coverage to their employees or pay an annual penalty of up to $2,000 per employee. The provision would have taken effect on January 1, 2014.
The employer mandate had already been seriously weakened by earlier Obama Administration rulings that defined "affordable coverage" as anything costing less than 9.5% of family income for individual coverage. Thus, an employer could require a worker earning $40,000 per year to contribute up to $3,800 per year for individual coverage and an unlimited amount for added family coverage and still be in compliance with the law. In addition, since the mandate only applies to workers' regularly scheduled for 30 or more hours per week, many employers were exploring ways to manipulate workers schedules and convert employees from full-time to part-time status as a way to evade the new law.
Apparently, these concessions and loopholes were not enough to satisfy the business community. They continued to pressure the Obama Administration for more delays while they forged ahead with plans to exploit every loophole in the existing legislation.
"The whole bill is built around the needs of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries," Ida Hellander, Director of Health Policy and Programs for Physicians for a National Health Program, told Common Dreams. "The delay is just a symptom of this bill being too complicated and too burdensome for the many people who will be uninsured or under-insured under Obamacare."
While the Administration has bent over backwards to make concessions to big business, labor's concerns have been ignored. In a recent editorial in The Hill, United Food and Commercial Workers President Joe Hansen takes the administration to task for failing to address serious concerns central to the survival of union-sponsored Taft-Hartley plans that provide quality healthcare to 20 million working and retired Americans.
"When [the Obama administration] started writing the rules and regulations, we just assumed that Taft-Hartley plans - that workers covered by those plans, especially low-wage workers - would be eligible for the subsidies and stay in their plans and they're not," Hansen said. "I told them it was a very serious issue. That it was wrong. Taft-Hartley plans should be deemed as qualified healthcare providers and I also said it's going to have political repercussions if we don't get this fixed."
Predictably, the Republicans are using this concession by the Obama Administration to undermine the entire edifice of the Affordable Care Act. The Republican House leadership has announced its intention to convene hearings on the legality of the Administration's action and to call for a delay in the implementation of the "individual mandate" requirement that all uninsured Americans purchase health insurance coverage. The "individual mandate" is also set to take effect on January 1, 2014.
Meanwhile, for every year that the U.S. delays the implementation of a single-payer Medicare for All universal health care system, 45,000 more Americans die needless deaths, close to a million families are driven to bankruptcy and workers everywhere are subjected to relentless cost shifting and reduction in benefits.
Moving Forward to Healthcare Justice
The Labor Campaign for Single Payer stands with those who want to do more than circle the wagons around Obamacare. We believe that even the incremental gains achieved by the Affordable Care Act will be lost if labor does not lead the movement forward to a publicly funded, Medicare-for-All single payer system where everyone in America has full coverage and everyone pays their fair share. Instead of bemoaning the delays and concessions of the ACA, we need to challenge the American people to fight for the kind of healthcare they deserve.
July is the anniversary month of Medicare and our allies are planning a number of actions to build support for expanded and improved Medicare-for-All:
- On Wednesday, July 17, the Progressive Democrats of America's Educate Congress Campaign will be conducting letter drops in over 200 Congressional districts urging Representatives to "Heal America and End Austerity" by supporting Rep Conyers' HR 676—the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act--Rep. Ellison’s HR 1571--the Inclusive Prosperity ("Robin Hood") Act--and HR 1000--the Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act. You can find a local action here.
- On July 30, Healthcare NOW! will be coordinating dozens of local events commemorating Medicare's Birthday around the theme of "Medicare is the solution, not the problem." Information on planned events and how to organize your own event is available here.
- On July 31, Congressman John Conyers and other Congressional Progressive Caucus members will be hosting a news conference in Washington, DC to announce an important new study on the economics of single payer. Stay tuned for further information.
Don't mourn for the problems and shortcomings of Obamacare. Organize for healthcare justice!
In Solidarity,
Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator
Like this post? Consider sharing it on
Facebook or 
Twitter.