The Obama Administration has decided to delay the enforcement of the employer mandate until 2015. This mandate would have required all employers with greater than 50 full time employees to offer health insurance to all 
employees working more than 30 hours per week.
According to this Washington Post article, “The administration said it would postpone the provision after hearing significant concerns from employers about the challenges of implementing it.”
Mark J. Mazur, the Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, released this blog post today and cited two primary reasons for the delay.
First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees.
Mr. Mazur also clarified how this delay is going to impact these employers’ “shared responsibility payments“.
We recognize that this transition relief will make it impractical to determine which employers owe shared responsibility payments (under section 4980H) for 2014. Accordingly, we are extending this transition relief to the employer shared responsibility payments. These payments will not apply for 2014. Any employer shared responsibility payments will not apply until 2015.
We will continue to monitor this situation and will keep you updated.