The Obama administration announced a new delay to its signature health-care law that will be in effect until after the 2016 elections. Under the new policy change, insurers will be allowed to renew plans that do not meet Affordable Care Act regulations up until October 2016, meaning customers can have their plans cover them into 2017.
“We’re extending this to give people an opportunity to make a judgment about what works best for them and their families,” a senior administration official said, according to the Washington Examiner.
The administration’s previous delay of these requirements would have required people to purchase compliant plans this fall to have coverage starting January 2015. In other words, today’s decision will push some of the disruption of the law past the 2014 election, in which some senators especially face a difficult task in defending Democratic-held seats. The latest changes were made in consultation with two of those vulnerable incumbents: Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the administration said.
But an administration official denies politics played a role in the change, saying that “the motivation here is really to implement the law in the way it should be implemented.”