Pity the poor HR managers.
That's the first thought that sprang to mind after I heard the news about the delayed PPACA employer mandate.
I mean, sure, a lot of businesses were relieved to get the extra time. But in the HR world, it's fairly equivalent to canceling a moon shot, right? Months, if not years, of preparation and all of the momentum now put on hold.
And then, just as quietly as the first shoe, the other loafer gets dropped.
As reported on this site (and first, I believe, by the Washington Post), the Obama administration also won't expect the coming insurance exchanges to bother to verify individual applicant's income and health insurance status, at least not until 2015.
So now, to receive federal tax subsidies to help buy insurance, someone can simply claim their income falls between 100 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty line and that they don't have access to affordable insurance through an employer.
This, of course, is pretty much like expecting Wesley Snipes to fully and accurately report his taxes.
Sara Rosenbaum, a health policy professor at George Washington University, summed it up nicely, saying she thought Health and Health Services was doing "the best that it can under the circumstances."
The chortling, guffawing and snorts of contempt and disgust could be heard from shore to shore.
And that was just the HHS staffers.
Meanwhile, like a Novocain shot, a numbed sense of disbelief spread through the halls of HR departments across the land.
How could it be, after so much debate in Congress, after arguments before the Supreme Court, after all of the scrambling, hair-pulling and endless meetings, that the deadline is now … a whole extra year later than had been expected?
