Small Business SHOP Exchanges Delayed
The HHS announced yesterday, April 2nd, that one of the key provisions in the Obama Care Law, “The Small Business Health Options Program” (SHOP), is being delayed until 2015.
The Federally run SHOP marketplace was conceptualized in Health Care Reform to allow small businesses an opportunity to offer a choice health care options to their employees, but now as announced yesterday, they will now be limited to a single plan through the Exchanges.
According to a recent NY Times article, “The delay will prolong and exacerbate health care costs that are crippling 29 million small businesses,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana and the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.”
The plan choice option, already available to many big businesses, was supposed to become available to small employers via the federally-run SHOP Marketplaces in January 2014. But administration officials said they would delay it until 2015 in the 33 states where the federal government will be running the SHOP exchanges.
The Administration delayed the SHOP requirement for the other states as well, although a few states that opted to run their own exchanges, such as New York, California, Connecticut amongst others, said they planned to go ahead and offer an employee choice option next year, despite the delayed requirement by the federal government.
You can read more about the SHOP program by clicking here: “What is The Small Business Health Options Program?“
