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Health Care Delay Gets Cheers From Fort Worth Business Owner

Connor Industries
Connor Industries of Fort Worth makes wooden crates and pallets at a dozen small plants, each with fewer than 100 employees.

The Obama Administration is delaying part of the health-care reform law that requires businesses with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance.  That's good news for Fort Worth small business owner Grady Payne, CEO of Connor Industries.

“I think the delay is, they’re starting to think it through and they’re seeing the problems with it," says Payne, whom we talked to last summer about the law's impact. "It’s not a logical, well-thought-out plan. So, they’re having trouble with it and that’s why they’re having to delay it.”

Payne says the plan was to start in January and he’s still not clear on the minimum level of coverage he has to offer or how much it would cost the company and employees.

The White House said delaying the requirement until 2015 would give businesses more time to work out the complex reporting requirements mandated by law.

Payne says he anticipates having to hire an additional person just to do that paperwork. 

Former KERA reporter BJ Austin spent more than 25 years in broadcast journalism, anchoring and reporting in Atlanta, New York, New Orleans and Dallas. Along the way, she covered Atlanta City Hall, the Georgia Legislature and the corruption trials of Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards.