The Affordable Care Act envisioned as a cornerstone of its expansion of U.S. insurance coverage that employers with 50 or more workers would be required to provide health benefits to their employees. The Obama administration has again weakened that requirement, first by delaying enforcement of the mandate until 2015 and now many firms will have even more time under the regulation issued this week.
 

Under new rules announced Monday by Treasury Department officials, employers with 50 to 99 workers will be given until 2016 - two years longer than originally envisioned under the Affordable Care Act - before they risk a federal penalty for not complying.

Companies with 100 workers or more are getting a different kind of one-year grace period. Instead of being required in 2015 to offer coverage to 95 percent of full-time workers, these bigger employers can avoid a fine by offering insurance to 70 percent of them next year.

Among other exemptions, the administration said in the rule issued this week that employers won't have to cover seasonal workers, those employed less than six months.

Employers with fewer than 100 workers will have to certify to the government that they haven't fired workers to get under the threshold and qualify for the delay until 2016. They also must certify they won't drop health plans they already offer, officials said.

"Today's final regulations phase in the standards to ensure that larger employers either offer quality, affordable coverage or make an employer responsibility payment starting in 2015 to help offset the cost to taxpayers of coverage or subsidies to their employees." Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur said in a statement.

As word of the delays spread Monday, many viewed them as an effort by the White House to defuse another health-care controversy before the fall midterm elections. Originally, the employer mandate which affects companies employing 72 percent of all Americans - was to have gone into effect Jan. 1, at the same time the law began mandating most Americans to have health insurance.

The law says that anyone who works 30 hours or more is a full-time employee, and it compels many employers to offer affordable insurance to those workers and their dependents. It defines affordable as premiums of no more than 9.5 percent of an employee's income, and employers health insurance plan must pay for the equivalent of 60 percent of the actuarial value of a worker's coverage. Businesses that fail to do so will eventually face a fine of up to $2,000 for each employee after the first 30 who are not offered coverage, though workers are not required to sign up for the benefits.

 
Under the health-care law, small employers - those with fewer than 50 workers - do not have to offer health insurance.
 

Administration officials said Monday that they will issue a separate set of rules in coming weeks that will cover related questions about how employers must report their workers' insurance status to the government.