House GOP leaders have formally requested intra-administration analysis from President Obama regarding the decision to delay the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate provision by one year.
Specifically, they want to know how what the administration believes the budgetary, economic, and coverage-related consequences of the delay will be, and thus determine the extent to which the decision was rooted in policy objectives over politics.
And they want to know soon. Their letter, delivered Tuesday, asks for the following specifics, by July 16 of this year — a week from today.
- The change in the number of individuals receiving subsidies through the exchange for calendar year 2014.
- The change in the number of individuals expected to pay the individual mandate penalty for calendar year 2014.
- The change in the number of employers who currently provide health care coverage.
- Changes in federal outlays and revenues.
- Changes in enrollment in Medicaid for calendar year 2014.
- The impact of the employer mandate on increasing the number of individuals working part-time involuntarily and business reducing the number of hours employees work to below 30 hours.
- The impact on the ability of the IRS and Health care Exchanges to accurately verify and prevent fraud regarding individual eligibility for premium tax credits and cost sharing subsidies.
- The legality of the decision to unilaterally delay the mandate.
- The economic impact.
Internal executive branch deliberations can be privileged, and administration’s frequently deny requests to reveal them.
But the fact that the leaders are seeking analytical information rather than the strategic perspectives of administration players will make the GOP’s request harder to deny.
That they’re seeking this information from the administration rather than from the Congressional Budget Office suggests they believe the information will be damning and want to prove that the White House was aware of the consequences.
As we’ve reported, delaying the employer mandate by a year should increase the federal deficit, and result in more people entering the insurance exchanges and on Medicaid than expected, but also mitigate the problems peculiar to the mandate, which were burdensome for businesses and harmed some employees by creating an incentive for some employers to reduce worker hours to below 30 a week.
The GOP leaders also ask Obama if other provisions of the law will be delayed prior to October 1, when enrollment in the exchanges is scheduled to begin.
