The National Retail Federation sent a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. calling on Congress to pass a one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate.
The House vote, expected later, follows the Administration’s announcement earlier this month of a one-year delay of the employer mandate provisions. NRF is considering all votes leading up and in connection with H.R. 2677, the Authority for Mandate Delay Act, as key votes and will use them in its annual voting guide.
“NRF has worked hard to help our members come into compliance with the Affordable Care Act,” NRF Senior Vice President David French wrote in the letter. “We have repeatedly voiced concern about the effect of the employer mandate penalties on retail and chain restaurant jobs and job growth. We have also expressed concern about the rapidly diminishing amount of time to come into compliance with the ACA.”
NRF recently testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, where it called on the Administration and Congress to delay the health care reform law to provide businesses and employers more time to adapt their systems. Soon thereafter, the Administration announced its intention to delay the employer mandate requirements for one-year.
“We welcome this delay as an opportunity to improve our [members’] compliance efforts and for the exchanges to implement the complex interplay of reporting and verification to make subsidy eligibility and penalty determination possible,” the letter said. “NRF also welcomes this Congressional effort to clearly and directly delay the requirements, thus underlining the existing Administration commitment.”
As the world’s largest retail trade association and the voice of retail worldwide, NRF represents retailers of all types and sizes, including chain restaurants and industry partners, from the United States and more than 45 countries abroad. Retailers operate more than 3.6 million U.S. establishments that support one in four U.S. jobs – 42 million working Americans.
