The long and tortuous path to enacting and implementing President Obama’s signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act, has taken yet another twist. Recently, the Obama administration conceded that it was not prepared to implement one of the signature elements of ACA, the so-called employer mandate. This has reignited the firestorm of debate over the law and how it will be administered.
Lost in the furor is what this means for bakers, other businesses and consumers of healthcare services. The American Bakers Association (ABA) has conducted or facilitated almost a dozen informational sessions to help bakers make critically important decisions on how to implement the ACA in their companies. Having sat in on a number of these sessions, I realized that the questions have become ever more complex and convoluted, while the answers seem to slip away into the atmosphere. The decision to delay enforcement of the employer mandate for a year does provide the luxury of more time. Unfortunately, answers to the multitude of questions raised by the act are not likely to be clearer or more pleasant with which to manage.