The White House has delayed implementing a key provision of Obamacare that Democrats argue would have been helpful in the next elections.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decided to a one-year delay on part of the healthcare law which could have helped small businesses by providing workers with multiple healthcare options instead of just one,
reports The Hill.
Since Republicans plan to make Obamacare an election issue next year, Democrats had hoped to tout the provision as a selling point of the president’s controversial law.
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“Senate Republicans will have the opportunity to campaign against Obamacare’s rising healthcare costs, burdensome paperwork and broken promises and could use it to motivate voters against Democrat candidates, especially vulnerable ones in red states,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist, according to the publication.
Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana was one Democrat in a “red state” who was critical of the decision.
She told the New York Times that the delay will “prolong and exacerbate healthcare costs that are crippling 29 million small businesses.”
Landrieu will most likely face a tough election next year. Republicans are hoping that Rep. Bill Cassidy, a practicing physician, will be her challenger.
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the primary author of the Affordable Care Act, is another vulnerable Democratic senator that will be up for re-election next year.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee last week labeled Baucus the “Obamacare architect.”
Republicans see many weak points in the law that they argue will be revealed as more provisions are implemented in 2014.
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