The Obama administration's recent decision to delay the 2010 healthcare reform law's employer mandate by a year is estimated to increase the law's net cost to the federal government by $12 billion over 10 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation announced Tuesday. A relatively modest cost increase was predicted when the mandate delay was announced.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had requested that the CBO and JCT assess the effects of the July decision to postpone for one year the law's provision that employers provide insurance to their workers or else pay a penalty. In a six-page report, the CBO noted that its May 2013 baseline projections had estimated the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's insurance provisions would cost the federal government about $1.36 billion between 2014 and 2023. After the Treasury department's recent announcement, the CBO recalculated those projections and now estimates the insurance coverage measures in the law will cost the federal government about $1.375 billion over that same 10-year period.
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