Health Care Advocates Wary of Yearlong Delay In Big-Biz Requirement For Obamacare
By Paul Kurtz
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- While business groups are applauding the White House for pulling back on the employer mandate for a year (see related story), health care advocates have mixed feelings.
The one-year delay is bad news for employees, but Kevin Flynn, president of center city Philadelphia-based Health Care Advocates Inc., says many were already getting shut out by companies that have found ways around Obamacare.
"They're putting on hiring freezes because they don't want to hire people, because it's going to cost too much to insure them," he tells KYW Newsradio. "Also, they're taking their fulltime employees and making them part-time to get out of the insurance mandate. And on top of that you have other companies saying, 'I'll just pay the fine, forget insuring the people.' "
The extra year gives the White House time to regroup, but Flynn says it also gives opponents of the Affordable Care Act time to find new ways to attack it -- and large businesses time to find new ways around it.
