On November 27, the federal government announced that the start of the online federal health insurance exchange, or "marketplace," for small businesses will be delayed until November 2014. The delay will allow the government to continue focusing on getting the troubled HealthCare.gov website to function properly.
The start of online enrollment in the Small Business Health
Options Program ("SHOP") exchange had already been
delayed from an October 1 target date, and last April the
availability of an "employee choice" function (which will
allow employers to offer multiple plan options) was pushed
back one year.
A Q&A document released by the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services stated, "We've concluded that we can
best serve small employers by continuing this offline process while
we concentrate on both creating a smoothly functioning online
experience in the SHOP Marketplace, and adding key new features,
including an employee choice option and premium aggregation
services, by November 2014."
Small businesses may submit paper applications until the online
exchange is available. Businesses in the 14 states, plus the
District of Columbia, that operate their own exchanges will be
unaffected by the federal delay.
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