On Tuesday, June 10, the Obama Administration issued a delay that will allow 18 states not to implement a portion of ObamaCare’s small business health insurance exchange until 2016.
Despite the delay, which was issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, all three network evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the story on Tuesday evening.
From The Hill [1]:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) granted requests for lenience from 18 states in their effort to enact "employee choice" on the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP exchange. The delays mean that small-business employees seeking to buy health insurance in the SHOP system will only have one option in those 18 states.
The Affordable Care Act intended to allow customers on the SHOP exchange to pick from a variety of options, but the rollout of that feature has been delayed several times. In the latest deferral, the administration allowed state insurance commissioners to request that the SHOP in their state not offer "employee choice" next year.
In response, state officials raised concerns that insurers would price policies higher in 2015 under "employee choice" due to worries about absorbing sick customers.CMS did not deny any of the petitions, which were due on June 2.
The states that will not offer "employee choice" in 2015 are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia.
Rather than finding time to cover the latest ObamaCare delay, the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley ran a full report on Colorado’s “new cash crop” i.e. marijuana. ABC’s World News With Diane Sawyer decided to run a full segment on swimming with sharks and NBC’s Nightly News covered the American Medical Association announcement that cheerleading should be considered a sport.
— Jeffrey Meyer is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center. Follow Jeffrey Meyer on Twitter. [2]