Best of the Web Today: OmertàCare - WSJ.com: "You've no doubt heard about the latest ObamaCare "delay"--the announcement that the Internal Revenue Service will waive fines on certain employers that do not provide workers with medical insurance. That "employer mandate," which by law took effect this year, had already been put off until 2015. Now it won't be enforced until 2016 for companies with between 50 and 99 employees, and those with 100 or more will escape fines if they offer insurance to 70% of their employees rather than the 95% stipulated in the law.
Because most big employers already cover workers, "the employer mandate is not an especially important policy lever in the Affordable Care Act," shrugs the Washington Post's Sarah Kliff. The "lever" metaphor--something that moves--seems precisely chosen. The employer mandate's main intent would seem to be to prevent companies from dropping coverage, not to induce them to start. It's meant as a constraint, not a lever. Anyway, Kliff concludes that while the new delay "can matter politically," in terms of its effect on the insurance market, it "will likely amount to a relatively small, if non-existent, change." We think she means "if existent.""
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