***UPDATE: Cruz asks why not delay it forever?

Heard Obama Admin may delay #Obamacare employer mandate for 1 year. How about we delay it all forever? #FullRepeal pic.twitter.com/dGst0dFLpm

***

Obama is trying to delay some of the pain of Obamacare on small businesses until after the 2014 elections, by moving the employer mandate start date to 2015:

FOX NEWS – The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is delaying a major provision in the health care overhaul, putting off until 2015 a requirement that many employers offer health insurance.

The announcement was made late Tuesday by the Treasury Department, at the beginning of the holiday week while Congress was on recess. It comes amid reports that the administration is running into roadblocks as it prepares to implement ObamaCare.

The change in the employer mandate is arguably the most significant concession the administration has made to date.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a critic of the law, seized on the delay as a “clear admission” that the law is “unaffordable, unworkable and unpopular.”

“It’s also a cynical political ploy to delay the coming train wreck associated with ObamaCare until after the 2014 elections,” he said.

The law requires companies that employ 50 or more workers to offer coverage or face fines. The Treasury Department and the White House said that, based on complaints by employers that the system for reporting the coverage was too onerous, they would simplify that system and give employers an additional year to comply.

“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively,” Mark J. Mazur, the assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department, said in a statement posted online. “We have listened to your feedback. And we are taking action.”

The mandate was originally set to kick in for 2014, but will now start in 2015.

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