CBO: Employer Mandate Delay Estimated To Cost The Feds $12 Billion

The amount represents lost tax revenue and additional costs. The Congressional Budget Office also noted that about one million fewer people will get insurance from their employers in 2014 than they would have if the mandate had been implemented.

The Wall Street Journal: Delay In Employer Health Mandate Estimated To Cost $12 Billion
The Obama administration's move to delay a mandate on businesses to provide health coverage will mean $12 billion in lost tax revenue and additional costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. ... Earlier this month, the Treasury Department said it was delaying for one year the enforcement of penalties that could be charged to employers with 50 or more people for not providing adequate health insurance in 2014 (Dooren, 7/30).

The Washington Post’s Wonk Blog: Obamacare Mandate Delay Costs $12 Billion, Cuts Insurance Coverage
The vast majority of that increase ($10 billion) reflects a reduction in the penalties that the government would have collected from employers who did not comply with the requirement to provide health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office, which released the new estimate Tuesday, also expects more Americans to access federal subsidies purchasing coverage on the new marketplaces (Kliff, 7/30).

Reuters: 'Obamacare' Mandate Delay Will Cost $12 Billion, Affect 1 Million Workers
"Of those who would otherwise have obtained employment-based coverage, roughly half will be uninsured (in 2014)," CBO said in a July 30 letter to Representative Paul Ryan, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee (Morgan, 7/30).

The Hill: CBO: ObamaCare Mandate Delay Will Cost Government $12 Billion
Republicans have hammered the Obama administration over the delay, arguing that it creates a double standard because the law's individual mandate still goes into effect next year. ... Although the delay in the employer mandate will make parts of the law more expensive, the CBO has said that taken as a whole, the law reduces the federal deficit (Baker, 7/30). 

The Associated Press/MPR News: Delay Of Employer Penalties Will Cost Gov’t $10B
The budget office said fewer than half million people will have to forgo coverage as a consequence of the delay in the so-called employer mandate. The delay " will have only a negligible effect on sources of insurance coverage," the report said. ... the impact on the bottom line does not appear to be major -- at least in terms of the federal budget (Alonso-Zaldivar, 7/31).

Bloomberg: Delay Of U.S. Health Law Mandate To Cost $12 Billion
The costs of the delay were offset by about $1 billion because of “small changes,” CBO said, including an increase in income tax collections from people who don’t get coverage at work. The value of employer-provided health insurance isn’t taxed, while workers who get higher pay to buy insurance on their own would have to pay income tax on that compensation (Wayne, 7/30).